The Worst Witch 2017 - Mildred's Summer Holidays
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Set after First year. Mildred and her mum are on holiday travelling around the country, but even after a year of school Mildred is still getting into trouble and getting into situations beyond her control. Water dragons, mummies, and fairies, oh my. But there's a catch - Mildred is alone without support from Miss Cackle or Miss Hardbroom, only relying on herself and her mum.
1. Chapter 1 Arriving at Loch Ness

Disclaimer - I own only this story and the others under my pen name. I like the Worst Witch, which is owned by Jill Murphy and is better in many areas to Harry Potter.

Enjoy.

Mildred's Summer Holidays.

Arriving at Loch Ness.

Loch Ness. The place was definitely magical, she could feel it as soon as she looked out over the dark waters of the loch. Seeing the legendary water which was like polished black glass when you looked at it from a certain angle, the lake did hold a mysterious aura, but for Mildred the lake was truly magical. It was there in the air, a feeling similar to the one present all the time at school. Mildred had wanted to come here for years, the thought of seeing the monster was only a small part of it, but when she'd arrived she was amazed by the breathtaking open scenery and fresh air.

But there was something in the air, something she only felt at Cackles. She had only noticed it when she'd left the castle to head for the cottage Agatha had been exiled to and then when she'd been 'expelled' when the evil Cackle twin had taken over the school, but when she'd returned to the school when Ethel had sent that letter to her with Tabby; she still didn't know why the bitter Hallow girl who spent more time hating her for reasons Mildred simply couldn't be bothered burdening herself with had sent it, but she was grateful for a chance to redeem herself for her own mistakes.

Despite being a witch with only a few months of magical training, Mildred had learnt quite a few things despite her image as a girl who was a "slow learner" and had trouble grasping the basic concepts of magic; it was truly unfair that everyone expected her to catch up with the others who had 11 and more years of knowing and studying magic with their families because it was expected of them without giving her some one to one time to explain basic concepts to her in such a short amount of time, but truthfully she was struggling.

One thing she had learnt was that witches and wizards could feel magic in places where magic was strong, and even see witches and wizards in flight on broomsticks where normal people couldn't. That explained why there wasn't a panic when Maud and the other girls had mounted their broomsticks to go to Cackles for the selection day exam. Mildred had always wondered why she had seen the witches on the brooms and no one else had, but she'd quickly found that out after Miss Cackle had told her.

Thinking of Miss Cackle made Mildred's smile vanish slightly. It had been only a few days since the recent mess with Agatha Cackle, who'd tried to take the school from her sister for a third time running with the help of Miss Gullet; why the disgraced spells science teacher had decided to go to Agatha was anyone's guess, but revenge was a safe bet, but did Agatha really have what it took to give it to her? It might work for a time, but eventually Miss Gullet had more to lose. Finding out Agatha was actually the older twin had been horrifying to Mildred, especially after seeing the lengths the woman was willing to go just to become headmistress. How could anyone call themselves a good headmistress when they were willing to use the witches code to ensnare the school and try to discredit your own twin by killing two girls on a cursed broom, Mildred didn't know, shuddering at the memory of how that broomstick Ethel loaned her had nearly killed her; given a chance with not put under pressure, she was a reasonable flyer, not perfect but good enough, but under pressure and she was liable to crash.

Mildred frowned as she remembered her own stupidity the last time around. She had instantly believed Agatha had taken Ada's place simply because the headmistress didn't seem herself, but that was only because she'd found out her sister had gotten away from Darkwood cottage with Miss Gullet's help, but she'd stupidly thought Agatha had taken her sisters place simply because Ada wasn't her usual cheerful kindly self. Of course Miss Cackle wasn't herself, she was too concerned with Agatha, and yet she'd jumped to conclusions, again!

She had been so sure that she was even willing to hand over her magic to Agatha, and would have done but a little voice in the back of her head kept shouting and screaming that Ada would never ask for such a thing even in desperation because despite whatever her students did Ada always cared about them, and her suspicions were raised at once, so when 'Ada' condescended her she knew at once who she was; Agatha might have tricked everyone with her pretence during that incident with the Great Wizard, but it hadn't been until she'd tried and failed to cast a transference spell and potentially risked Mildred and Enid's life that her second plan failed, but you'd have thought she would have kept her condescending attitude to herself a third time. Mildred had only just managed to get away, just, only to find her broomstick had been stolen, taken by Miss Gullet who promptly turned it into magical dust. Mildred had barely managed to escape, though she had laughed privately to herself when Agatha had taunted her, said that she wasn't a witch simply because she was calling for help. All that from a witch whose powers had been removed? Please!

Without her broomstick a journey which had only taken an hour took a whole night - the forest was unfamiliar to her, so she was lost, and she didn't know any direction spells. Mildred had returned to Cackles the next day in the early morning feeling extremely tired and despondent, but she wouldn't know until much later that Agatha and Miss Gullet had already taken the school over during the night.

Maud had met her at the gates, clearly annoyed and disappointed. Mildred had tried to apologise, but her best friend hadn't listened, instead she'd called for Miss Hardbroom. Despite now knowing the truth that Maud and HB had only done it to keep her safe because there was no telling what Gullet and Agatha would have done to her, but knowing it would be unpleasant, Mildred would never forget the cold look on HB's face and the look on Maud's face; she knew it was meant to look good, but did Maud have to resemble Ethel Hallow? At the time Mildred had been sure Maud was finally tired of her going off on her own and ignoring everything she told her not to do. It brought back memories of when Maud had used that powder to make the teachers forget their misdemeanours, but got it so wrong that it made Mildred and Enid forget their friendship with her! Surely Maud wasn't willing to make the same mistake again?

It wasn't a mistake. Maud had found out she had sneaked out and told Miss Hardbroom when Agatha made her presence in the castle known, and realised she would be in danger. Mildred was thankful to them since she hadn't liked the looks Miss Gullet and Agatha had sent her way when they'd cornered her in the forest, but she would've preferred a bit more notice. How could she have known the two crooked witches - she was sure they were crooked at the time, her definition for them would change later when she saw what they would do later - had taken over the school when she was tired from her trip through the forest, alone and without any kind of guide?

At home with her mother, Mildred had found herself feeling…..empty without Cackles, despite Maud's attempts to mirror-call her and that exercise mat in her living room. Her mother knew she wanted to get back but couldn't, and it wasn't until Ethel who'd had a rare change of heart, but after seeing her elder sister losing her magic and being turned into a trophy, of all things, and sent Tabby to her with a letter did the whole story come out. HB had sent her home without her beloved cat, and Mildred wasn't sure what to do about it until he was sent to her via Ethel mail. Mildred smiled at the pun, but her mind cleared when she remembered the flight back on that mop - it wasn't like a broomstick, and she'd quickly found it out. Miss Gullet loved talking about health and safety all the time, but she was right about the number of spells placed on broomsticks to keep their riders safe, and Mildred didn't know any spells to make the trip safer, so after a slow journey she returned to the academy. There she witnessed her friends - and Ethel - being transformed into cakes and nearly being eaten alive by their own friends, saw that Miss Cackle had been imprisoned in the portrait of her and her twisted sister on the wall, heard that Mr Rowan-Webb and Miss Bat had been changed into frogs and the Great Wizard himself was a balloon, but it would be the cake thing that made her ill - Mildred had heard of cannibalism, but that was taking the cake. She winced at the pun, not noticing the look of worry on her mothers face when she winced. Bad Mildred.

At least Miss Hardbroom had smiled reassuringly at her when the spell she'd tried to cast on the portrait to free Ada Cackle, proving the usually icy woman had a heart, and she felt happier knowing that Miss Hardbroom was trying to keep her safe from Agatha and Miss Gullet. Mildred had left the office and Miss Hardbroom, more or less planning on heeding her potion teachers order to simply leave and keep herself safe, but she'd wandered the corridors trying to think up a plan to deal with the two witches now running the school…..and she'd stopped Drusilla and Felicity from taking a bite out of the cakes of who had once been either Maud, Enid, or Ethel.

Everyone had been sick when they'd heard what Miss Gullet had done, but they were terrified when Agatha cast that annihilation spell on the castle after finally getting it into the woman's twisted mind no-one wanted her in the school as headmistress. It had reminded Mildred of all the disaster movies she'd watched, but she'd found Agatha's parting remark of "Until we meet again, Mildred Hubble" a tad over the limit. Did the evil twin of her headmistress really see her like that? All Mildred had done was interfere a little bit, but most of what happened was blind luck, she wasn't experienced or knowledgeable enough to cause Agatha that much trouble. The second plan for instance, she'd only told Maud and then Enid about Agatha and Maud was the one to find Ada Cackle and wake her up and tell her what was happening. Ada only managed to stop Mildred and Enid from falling to their deaths whereas Agatha had been more than content to watch.

With the school crashing around them, the solution had come to Mildred as soon as everyone was out, well everyone not transformed into frogs or paintings or trophies that is. Mildred would always remember fondly how everyone had chanted with her and repaired the damage, using their combined strengths and magic to reverse the annihilation spell and free Miss Hardbroom, Miss Cackle, Esmerelda, the Great Wizard, and Miss Bat and Mr Rowan-Webb. For the first time everyone had rallied around her, chanting the spell to stop the school from being destroyed.

Mildred actually thought it poetic justice to see Miss Gullet and Agatha be trapped inside a picture and then hung up in the headmistress's office - she was sure there was a way to free them, but at least in the coming year Agatha wouldn't try anything though whether it would do any good in the long run, Mildred didn't know.

Agatha had spent god knew how many years stewing in her jealousy over not inheriting the school from Ada, she wasn't going to let a little matter of the students not wanting her around stop her. She'd lost her powers, and she still wanted the academy, and she had an equally angry witch helping her along to help her! A picture wouldn't make any difference after being in Darkwood cottage for a year.

But still…..Mildred's brow furrowed, she was still surprised by Agatha going so far, she'd thought that the woman had wanted Cackles for herself, and yet she was willing to destroy it when she finally realised that her actions and her methods of punishment were so cruel and bizarre they wouldn't be accepted. She'd thought Agatha just sitting back and letting her nearly die on an out of control and cursed broomstick had been bad, but seeing her and Miss Gullet nearly destroy the school had been…..terrifying.

"You okay, Millie?"

Mildred smiled at her mother. "Hmm, yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"I just saw you wince," Julie said. "You okay?"

The two Hubbles were staying in a small rented cottage not far from the loch but on the road to Inverness. The place was larger outside than their flat, and yet on the inside the rooms were bunched in together, not exactly the TARDIS from Dr. Who, but comfortable. Mildred was just glad she wasn't living on top of other people for the holiday. She was also glad she and her mother weren't staying with other people, not with the homework she had brought with her.

Mildred nodded, "Yeah. I was just thinking about what happened at the end of term."

"Uh, huh," Julie had heard the story and had been scared stiff by what Mildred had told her about what Miss Cackle's twin sister had done, but she was proud by what her daughter had accomplished even if she had problems understanding why Mildred was so taken by the being a witch, but knew her daughter loved it. "You did good, Millie. But in future please be careful, I nearly jumped out of my skin when you told me you'd been changed into a frog by that Hallow girl."

Mildred winced at the memory of her mother's reaction, but she smiled. "That was one year. There're four more to go. With a bit of luck," she added to herself, remembering how close she had come to being kicked out of Cackles even when it wasn't really her fault. But she quickly smiled back at her mother. "Anyway, we're on holiday in Scotland," she said, putting on a bad Scottish accent that made Julie laugh, "we're gonnae see Nessie!"

"Okay, Mildred," Julie smirked, and put on her own Scottish accent which was no better than Mildred's, "when do ye wanna see Nessie?"

"Tomorrow?"

Julie agreed.

It would be good to visit the loch the next day, Mildred reflected. What could possibly happen?

* * *

 **Authors note - Hmm, what can happen indeed.**

 **It's a bit short, but it will grow larger throughout the chapters. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this new story which will fit in with Mildred's summer holidays between first and second year at Cackles. I just wanted to write a story where Mildred develops into her own as a witch without depending on Cackles and the support of her friends and teachers.**

 **Anyway I hope you enjoyed this little introduction where Mildred ponders on her successes and her mistakes.**


	2. Chapter 2 Nessie?

Disclaimer - I don't own the franchise of the Worst Witch, just this little idea I had in my mind. I've posted this on my birthday, just to give something to you.

* * *

Nessie?

The next day, despite not seeing any sign of the legendary monster in the loch after being stuck on the boat for an hour already, the feeling of magic in the air became more stronger and more potent for Mildred; the young witch may have been inexperienced on how to gauge it, but she could feel it. To everyone in the boat the lake as vast and empty looking, not helped by its murky colouring but for Mildred the lake was far from empty. Just feeling the magic in the air around the loch was the only thing stopping Mildred from getting bored in the little tourist boat. There were about 10 people in the boat, including the Hubbles, and they were too busy taking in the massive lake they were on in the boat to pay attention to the others. Mildred herself was too busy taking photos of the loch and the surrounding countryside to really bother with the others in the boat, she had only spent a minute or so aware of them before she simply decided to put them out of her mind. Contrary to what some of her peers and teachers at the academy thought, Mildred Hubble was observant. The other people in the boat were the usual mix - some who were 'oohing' and 'awwing' at the loch and its beauty, those who were just humouring the ones who were happy, and those who didn't care.

Most of them were looking at the loch with eager wonder, their hands holding either pairs of binoculars or cameras, ready to take a picture of the monster. But a few of them weren't really bothered about the sights around them. Mildred knew that for some people tourism was just a way to gaze at different places for a short time with the excuse of wanting a holiday, and then they could return to their own lives, and truthfully she ignored them. She could have spoken to them, but truthfully she didn't want to. What would be the point when in a few days she and her mother would be leaving for the next part of their holiday? It wasn't likely she would keep in touch with them anyway, and besides, after the turmoil of the last few days of term Mildred wasn't in the mood to speak to anyone who didn't know anything about magic just yet. She wanted to have some time to herself between now and the day she went back to Cackles, maybe some time she'd meet someone to talk to. But really, would such a friendship last? At Cackles she had access to a call mirror, but that wasn't good enough. She had no mobile phone, no internet, no technology at Cackles. How would she keep in touch?

Mildred shook her head and turned her attention back to the holiday. She and her mother had been on holidays many times before, but there was a limit on where they could go on Julie's pay, and besides Mildred wasn't complaining. She knew only too well how much cash her mother had needed to pay for her time at Cackles, and not for the first time Mildred asked herself what would have happened if she'd taken Miss Pentangle's offer of a scholarship; she still wasn't sure about the woman, and why out of all the other girls at the school Miss Pentangle had decided to offer a scholarship to her. What would have changed, would she and Maud still be friends? Would someone finally take her to the side and help her with her basic and still growing knowledge of magic and witching society? Or would Pentangle just shove her aside, put her on a shelf and just admire her from afar without giving a thought about her mental wellbeing? And yet…..the thought of finally excelling and proving her detractors wrong and making them choke and grimace when they finally saw her excel at magic - as much as she liked her, Mildred sometimes thought Miss Cackle didn't really want her there despite giving her a chance, Ada Cackle would really need to be stupid not to think Mildred hadn't seen those annoyed looks sent her way - was compelling to her. But what if she disappointed Miss Pentangle?

Once again Mildred wished she'd had the opportunity to speak to the two students the visiting headmistress had brought with her for the Spelling Bee competition and get some answers from them, but there was no such luck - Miss Hardbroom had put her and Ethel through their paces and kept such a close eye on them both Mildred had felt trapped. Even when Pentangle had told her during the interval of the competition when she'd been on her own while HB hovered around Ethel that she had a gift, Mildred was not sure if the woman was just being kind or just telling her what she wanted to hear from an older witch.

One thing was for sure, if she had accepted and the woman was nothing like she seemed when they'd first met and that all Pentangle's promises and her saying Mildred was gifted and Pentangles school would be happy to have her on as a student were empty and she was just like Cackle and HB and virtually everyone else at the school she went to, then Mildred would really have been disappointed.

It was bad enough she was disappointing Miss Cackle, but it was the sincerity of Miss Pentangle which was the primary reason why Mildred hadn't accepted the scholarship offer, though she had been tempted by it.

The thought of actually being in a magical school where everybody else would be more or less like her (still not sure if that was the truth) had been compelling, but in the end Mildred had politely refused.

Mildred knew how hard Cackle was fighting to keep her at the academy, and while her overall grades were anything but awe inspiring, she was learning which was something to be proud of. What she would really appreciate, what would really be good, is if the teachers didn't constantly pressure her.

Mildred shook her head out of her reverie and focused on the loch, deciding to simply forget the promised scholarship even if she asked herself what life would've been like had she accepted, wondering what was hidden inside the murky waters. Yep, there was definitely magic here, she could feel it but she lacked the knowledge to truly understand it. I never thought I'd say this inside my own head, Mildred thought to herself. I wish Miss Hardbroom were here.

Of all the places where there was a mystery loch ness and the monster supposedly under its surface was something that always made Mildred think, and when she'd started going to Cackles to learn how to become a witch, she'd learnt she already had magical talents such as being able to feel magic and see things magical ordinary people couldn't. Mildred had already told her mother about being able to feel the magic around the loch, but while Julie wasn't a witch herself - Mildred still hadn't given up on learning where her magic had come from and why, but for the time being she would stop thinking of her mum as a witch who had decided to abandon magic for unknown reasons - and couldn't give Mildred advice, she could tell Mildred to keep an eye out in case she saw something in the waters of the loch.

While everybody in the boat couldn't see the magic, Mildred could. She could see areas in the loch where water was patchy, by which she meant the water was still blackish and yet there were parts where the water seemed to glow.

"C'mon mom, dad, this place is boring!" A whisper, but loud enough for the tour guide and the boat's driver to hear came from a rather spoilt looking girl. There would always be one no matter where you toured.

Mildred and Julie had heard the girl constantly complain about the loch, blissfully ignorant and uncaring about the wonders of the lake they were speeding across and uncaring about the countryside. Mildred hadn't bothered going over to the girl, say hello and be pleasant to distract her and make her shut up. The girl reminded her vividly of Ethel Hallow in attitude, but even Ethel was more preferable to this girl. At least Ethel knew when to stew quietly.

It was the beauties of the loch which had been Mildred's escape from being near Ethel version 2, otherwise she would have gone insane. Mildred was enjoying herself - she had known from the off the chances of actually seeing Nessie were small, but hey she and her mum were having a day out. But the more magic she could feel and see around them the more convinced she was that there was something magical in the lake, and the further they travelled though Mildred found herself more immersed in seeing the magical patches grow larger in size and in length.

Julie noticed her daughter's attentive frown tinged with curiosity and leaned in so she could whisper into Mildred's ear. "You still see those patches of magic in the water, Millie?"

Mildred, whose attention was fixed on a really large patch, nodded before she spoke, "Yes. We're passing over a large one now," she added.

"Hmm, I wish I could see them for myself," Julie looked at her daughters face then looked out over the waters of the loch. "What do they look like on the water?"

Mildred was silent as she thought of a best description"Imagine you've dropped a load of luminous glitter into a tub of dark coloured water and you've got your answer," Mildred replied at last though she knew the answer wasn't completely accurate. Finally she decided to give up on the patches in the lake and just spend time with her mum. She had just turned away from the railings and settled down next to Julie, ready to take snapshots of the shoreline of the loch when she heard it. A voice, deep and resonant spoke gently to her.

 _"Mildred?"_

Mildred almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of the voice, and it made Julie jump as well. Luckily no one else on the boat noticed. "Mildred? Millie, you okay?" Julie asked. But Mildred didn't answer her mother. The voice made it hard for her to focus on other sounds nearby.

 _"Mildred? Mildred Hubble, please you must help me. I need your help. Help me!"_

Mildred gritted her teeth and scrunched her eyes up in pain as the voice's volume rose up a few notches. "Mildred?" The young witch looked up into her mother's worried eyes. "What's wrong?"

"You can't hear it?"

Julie's look became more worried. "Hear what?"

Mildred whispered; she'd noticed a few people look in their direction and she needed to keep this as quiet as possible. "A voice. It said my name and it needs my help. Didn't you hear it?"

"Mildred - I didn't hear a voice. Do you think it might be a, you know, an m-a-g-i-c thing?"

The thought had crossed Mildred's mind and she couldn't do anything more than nod. It had to be something related to magic, but she didn't know what. "Okay," Julie said.

"What? You believe me?"

"Mildred, you might be a witch, but you are still my daughter. If you can hear a magical voice, then I believe you, but please don't do anything really stupid like you did last time."

The pre-teen winced, wondering if it'd been a mistake to tell her mother about her misunderstanding of thinking Agatha had taken Ada's place and put the rightful headmistress into the same cottage she'd spent the past year without realising that Agatha was still in the cottage with Miss Gullet outside which had led to a really dangerous meeting where her powers were almost taken, and she'd been forced to trudge for miles alone in the dark before been sent home by Hardbroom.

But Julie had needed to know the full story of what had happened, why Hardbroom had sent her home, why her uniform was dirty and she was disheveled and tired, and she had not been impressed that her daughter had risked her life even if her intentions were pure and good. Mildred remembered only too well the bollocking she'd gotten from her mother, and she wasn't keen to have a repeat anytime soon.

She smiled back at Julie. "I won't mum, I promise," she said.

Julie's look of disbelief spoke louder than words.

The voice spoke again, and Mildred closed her eyes as she tried to drown it out. " _Mildred? Mildred, please don't go. Mildred, come back. COME BACK!"_

By the time the boat returned to where it had set off from Mildred jumped off the boat and headed away, delighted to get off and away from the voice which had been shouting so loud in her mind that she'd almost screamed for silence. Only Julie Hubble had noticed the way Mildred's eyes were screwed so tightly in pain, how she gently but firmly rubbed her temples as if soothing a massive headache, and she could see the way her daughter had gritted her teeth so tightly her jaw had nearly cracked.

* * *

After terrifying her mother with the voice in her head, Mildred tried to settle down in their holiday home and tried to get some of her homework done to distract her. She could still hear the voice inside her head, it had been slowly driving her insane for nearly 3 hours. The voice was getting impatient and louder, and the longer it went on the longer it eroded Mildred's patience. Between trying to concentrate on her work and the never ending nagging of the voice, it was a miracle Mildred hadn't gone mad already, but there was still time.

" _Mildred_. _Come to the shore of the loch, and I will meet you. Please Mildred, you must help me before its too late. Mildred? Mildred!_ "

"SHUT UP! Shut up you stupid voice and leave me alone!" Mildred finally shouted when she reached her wits end, scrunching her eyes up in agony as she tried to force the voice out of her mind. Her shout disturbed Julie, who came running in from the kitchen, only to find her daughter rocking backwards and forwards in the same seat where she'd left her, her books on magic scattered haphazardly around her along with pieces of paper and pens and pencils. Mildred's eyes were clenched tightly shut, and she was holding her hair so hard Julie was afraid her daughter would tear it all out.

Julie gently took her daughter into her embrace so as not to startle her. "That voice again, Millie?" she whispered, but she knew it was a stupid question since the voice had been driving Mildred crazy all day.

Mildred nodded. "I dunno what it is, mum. It's also getting louder."

Julie but her lip, but she couldn't make any suggestions. She knew that doctors wouldn't know what to do about magical ailments and she didn't know any magical doctors. Besides what would she say to them anyway? Her daughter was hearing voices over Loch Ness; they'd commit Mildred and lock her away and poke and prod her before they did anything really constructive.

Not for the first time she wished her daughter hadn't learnt about magic and the existence of Cackles academy, though it had been quite hard to hide since Mildred had been able to see the place long before Maud crashed into their balcony. Still at least her daughter was becoming something she'd fantasised and dreamt of for years even if she was suffering from a few hurdles. Julie could understand why Mildred wasn't as good as Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter movies; it had nothing to do with intellect or how well her daughter could read, Julie could remember that parents evening she'd attended during the year, how she'd spoken to the Nightshades and the Spellbody's. Both sets of parents of her daughters friends had known from the off she was non magical, but they were mature to know it wasn't her fault or her daughters for her heritage, in fact they'd thought it was fantastic their own daughters were friends with Mildred. Mr Nightshade in particular was delighted his wayward daughter had finally settled down and had found friends instead of wandering from one school after another like she had before settling down in Cackles, for which he was grateful for. And the Spellbody's were just as pleased that Maud had found a friend in Mildred.

Julie had asked them why Mildred had problems at school and they'd told her that from a young age, well an age their children could walk and talk and understand maths and how to read and write, they all taught their children the basics of magic from spells to potions. And she'd understood that Maud and Enid, despite how friendly they were, had an advantage over Mildred in that they had passed the stage where their abilities were all over the place. It wasn't Mildred's fault for which Julie had been thankful for. Mildred just needed time to learn how to become a witch, but did she have that time? Well her daughter was tenacious, determined, and prepared for the long haul even from time to time she was overwhelmed by the pressure put on her shoulders to succeed.

Julie smiled and gently prodded Mildred's shoulder to make her look up. "Dinner's ready soon, get the table ready," she said when Mildred looked up and nodded.

Pleased to have a job to do Mildred set the table, got cutlery and place mats out and ready. The voice didn't bother Mildred when she was eating, which was a relief because Mildred was unsure about what she could do if driven mad enough. She also wondered if the voice, whoever or whatever it belonged to, had finally gotten the message that constantly hounding her was not going to help.

But at the back of her mind, she knew she would need to visit the shore of the loch. She needed too, to find out what the voice was and who it belonged too before she went mad. She didn't want to lose her cool again like she had earlier on, especially in a room or on a boat full of people.

* * *

The light highland breeze whipped through Mildred's hair as she sat on her broomstick. She'd brought her broomstick with her so then she could practice her flying technique and improve her repertoire. Last year she'd almost been kicked out of the academy she worked so hard to stay in because of so many factors, and broomstick flying was one of them. Mildred wasn't going to let that happen to her again. She was going to become a witch even if it killed her, but she knew that her friends and everyone else at the academy had covered and bypassed the same hurdles which were dragging her down. Still she was managing to learn.

But bringing the broomstick had been a fight and a half when she'd told her mother she planned to practice her flying. Julie had wanted the holidays to be as magic free as possible, she didn't want every waking moment for Mildred to work on her magic without paying her any attention, and Julie was still put out that Mildred had just vanished to deal with Agatha Cackle and Miss Gullet the way she had, but she was pleased the expulsion had been overturned. They had made a deal. Mildred would work on her spells, potions, and flying skills after the two had spent time together, and Mildred was okay with that.

Her mother had been hurt that she'd just left to save Cackles with only a note left behind to say what was going on, but in the end Julie had been persuaded to let her go back to Cackles. Mildred sometimes wondered if her being a witch, and studying magic away from home was causing a rift between her and her mother, but while she wanted to succeed as a witch, she wanted her mother to be there with her.

The holiday was only a week in, but Mildred had been practicing ever since. She was always careful when she flew, always making sure no one could see her; she might be sure only magical people could see other witches and wizards on broomsticks but since her own broom had been snapped when she'd crashed into that tree, Mildred wasn't going to take any chances.

But tonight she was heading straight for the loch. Landing on the shore surrounded by rocks, Mildred looked left and right in case someone had seen her, then she walked close to the waters of the lake.

 _"Mildred? Are you there?"_

Feeling a little silly, Mildred said clearly, "I'm here. Who are you, voice?"

The water glowed a rich light green-blue colour before the brightness of the water grew until Mildred had to cover her eyes to block out the glow The sound of bubbles popping on the surface reached her ears, but the young witch couldn't see them. They sounded much like the cauldrons at Cackles coming to boil. The surface of the loch parted like the pages of a book being open halfway. Mildred jumped back in fear, letting out a small scream even as she stumbled across the pebbles on the beach for shelter. Then there was silence apart from what sounded like water trickling and moving around like at an adventure park.

"Mildred," the voice that she'd heard boomed out over the beach, shocking Mildred in its intensity. The voice seemed to roll over her like the sea washing across a beach. "Mildred," the voice repeated, much more gently but not lacking its intensity. Had the….being sitting in the water sensed her unease at the sound of its voice? Seemed that way.

Gathering her courage Mildred left her shelter behind the rock she'd found and gasped when she beheld what she was seeing. She gaped in awe, fear and wonder as she looked at the massive creature so close to the shoreline.

It was like a massive aquatic dinosaur she'd seen often in books, a Plesiosaur which made sense since Plesiosaurs were believed to be the Loch Ness monster from what she'd read, but this wasn't a dinosaur. This was no out of focus photograph, this was a real creature, like a cross between an aquatic dinosaur and a dragon. It was dark coloured, but she couldn't tell if it was black or some other colour. It was also like a metal mesh, with the scales standing out against its skin. All those pictures of the Loch Ness monster came to Mildred's mind, and as she let her eyes trace its form she could indeed see the resemblance. The head, the long neck, the rounded body…..But those pictures were out of focus, this was real life and the 'monster' was right in front of her.

The creature had a massive body and an enormous neck which was as thick as three oak trees and stretched up quite high to support a massive head that stretched outwards and looked like a typical bony dragon's head. The creature moved, startling Mildred, revealing two enormous and powerful forearms and clawed, webbed flipper-like paws with massive and long claws. All around the creature was a bright light that seemed to be a brighter form of turquoise mixed with light and dark forms of greens and blues though there were hints of other colours like purple and red, and they gave the creature a permanent ethereal glow.

The most incredible thing about this creature was that it was covered by water, which accounted for the sound she'd heard, the sound of water trickling and moving around. This creature, this dragon for she was sure it was some kind of dragon, seemed to be half made of water. While the blackness of its body seemed to be a template for its body and its shape, it was the water that moved and shifted all over it like it was trying hard to create a form that suited the dragon best.

Mildred watched in awe as the water shifted around the dragon's head. It was like an invisible sculptor was moulding the water to form long and fierce looking horns at the top of the dragon's head, while the water down its long neck seemed to be trying to decide how many spines or fins to form, how long they should be, how large.

The dragon moved its head closer to the stunned young witch, and Mildred jumped back with a gasp. "There is no need for fear," the dragon said. "I will not harm you. How small you are for such a great witch."

But Mildred wasn't in the mood to be flattered, in fact any other time if she heard anything like that she would laugh at them. She had learnt the hard way when she tried to cast magic she either said the spell wrong or it simply didn't work. But not always. Her powers were still in a trial and error stage, something she could do without. In fact she was tempted when she got back to Cackles to simply take as many books from the library and with her friends help, try to bridge the gulf between her and the other girls who were lucky enough to have some coaching and encouraging in magic from an early age.

Besides after what the dragon had put her through already, nearly being driven mad all day by its incessant summons, Mildred wasn't going to just accept the supposed compliment.

"Why did you bring me here?" Mildred asked, deciding to get straight down to business.

Fortunately the dragon didn't seem to mind her brusque manner. "I need your help, young witch. In return I will pass on knowledge of how better you can harness your powers. I said you would become a great and powerful witch. Let me prove it to you."

The dragon opened its mouth.

Mildred stepped back, suddenly afraid that her gullibility had struck again, and she would be eaten alive and munched on by a hungry dragon. "What are you doing?" she stammered. "Stay away from me!"

But the dragon didn't make any move towards her even as she backed away, her feet and ankles twisting on the beach pebbles. It simply breathed gently on her, a gush of wind that was a combination of steam, boiled water, and magic. Mildred closed her eyes as she was overwhelmed by a vision of herself. She saw herself with Maud and Enid learning spells and saw herself, slightly older, becoming more proficient. But then that wasn't a surprise for her, she knew she could do some spells given time and a chance. Here she was improving her spell knowledge and her repertoire of spells as effortlessly as Ethel Hallow, and achieving much better grades because unlike Ethel, Mildred didn't care about the petty grudge the blonde girl had for her.

Potions had always fascinated her. Unfortunately the reality was different, part of the reason was because she was still finding her feet in the school and she didn't understand many of the concepts. The others were lucky - they had grown up with potion fumes being breathed into their lungs everyday, learning how the ingredients worked.

But her? She had spent her entire life dreaming of becoming a witch, mixing eye of newt, lavender sprigs and daffodil bulbs into a cauldron and making a potion that made her either big or small. As she'd told Felicity as the other girl left the potions lab after that botch up with the growth spell, she was 11 years behind all of them. Mildred might be able to catch up, but she needed time and Miss Hardbroom didn't seem inclined to help her, but Mildred was tempted to ask. She couldn't struggle forever. She didn't want to.

But in the vision the water dragon was showing her, Mildred saw herself gradually improve her potion's skills - Mildred was already okay with some potions, but her knowledge of them was limited and fairly basic, but the vision showed that her grades shot through the roof. Sure she struggled with a few potions here and there, but overall the real Mildred was impressed by the performance of her future self, if that was her future self and not some lie the dragon was using to con her into helping it. She might have a trusting attitude, but not always. Even Mildred had her limitations when it came to trust and forgiveness.

Then the vision changed again only this time she saw herself in a setting similar to the Spelling Bee she and Ethel had taken part in with Miss Pentangle's students Zack and Sapphire. Only this time instead of just one school there were three more involved. In her mind Mildred was amazed by the kind of magic she could do.

She watched in amazement as she turned one of her contestants into a frog and was able to successfully reverse the spell without any ill effects to either herself or the witch she had just transformed - the last time she tried to reverse a transformation spell, it had been botched and Ethel Hallow had to go around human but with the snout of a pig.

Mildred shook her head. "What-what was that?" she asked.

"A vision of you becoming better than you are," the dragon replied simply. "I cannot teach you spells, but I can help you gain more control over them. But only if you help me."

Still not convinced that the vision wasn't a big white lie designed to make her compliant, Mildred looked up at the dragon suspiciously. "What do you want?" she asked without promising the dragon her help, though she wasn't sure what she could do for the dragon since it was a dragon. Surely it could look after itself? Mildred wasn't even sure how the water dragon lived in the loch, but the fact it was the Loch Ness Monster, and had defied the number of attempts to find it over the centuries was impressive. But those were non magical attempts, and Mildred asked herself if a witch or wizard would have better luck. _Well, you found it, so the answer must be yes_ , a voice that eerily sounded like HB right down to the dangerous undertone spoke inside her brain. Mildred blinked. Why did her brain instantly form its own HB? Since when?

"I am being hunted. I need you to help me stop him before he kills me."

* * *

 **Author's note - What do you think about the dragon? I loved writing the description and I hope you enjoyed it very much.**

 **Mildred being able to see Cackles is proof enough to me that she's a witch, the fact she can see the witches flying on broomsticks without people below being terrified always made me think about the way the magical world protects itself. It's sort of like Harry Potter and the way THAT magical world protects itself from the muggle world.**

 **It's how she can sense and feel the magic in the air whilst other people who don't have magical powers that always interested me, and its also a key factor for how the Loch Ness monster is able to hide whilst scientists and treasure seekers hunt it down.**

 **I also wonder whether or not Miss Pentangle was being sincere or not. What do you think? Also, what do you think about the idea there's a rift, unseen so far in the series, between Mildred and Julie?**

 **The next chapter might take some time - I want to concentrate on my other Worst witch story.**


	3. Chapter 3 The Wizard Hunter

The Wizard Hunter.

Wizard hunter Maurice Caven shivered in the cold of night, and he cursed the cloak he was using to keep himself warm before reapplying the heating spell to warm himself up - he hadn't been back in his home country for many years, preferring to spend his time in other lands that were more exotic than the highlands of Scotland and his heating spells were a little rusty because he'd only needed to warm up one or two things that weren't as large as his body. Worse, the climate in Scotland was freezing, especially at night. Maurice Caven still couldn't believe he had returned to his home country after so long. Indeed when you looked at the tan and sunburnt skin on Maurice Caven, you'd know he had spent many, many years outside the country, and the rich brown hue of his skin made it look like he wasn't even British until you saw the colour of his eyes. They were hard chips of ice set deep into the weathered and scarred features of a man who had spent much of his lifetime either learning about magic or learning skills from the scarred local peoples he had met and intimidated over the years.

Standing on a hill overlooking the loch, Maurice Caven glared down at the water and the size of the lake. It was no wonder the ordinary people's efforts to locate the so called monster had failed with the lake this size. But that didn't bother him since as a wizard he was more than able to track it down, it would just take a little less effort. Maurice was an experienced wizard and a cunning hunter, and he knew what he had in mind was not going to be easy or simple. He knew he was dealing with a water dragon. Maurice had never tried to hunt one of them before, they were usually well protected and they were incredibly scarce in the world. Caven closed his eyes as he let his senses examine the magic of the loch. He had learnt over the years how to use his magic to probe his surroundings and it was a trick which had helped him numerous times on his travels, helping him circumvent danger and tracking the animals he sought. He had once stalked a Kelpie using this trick, and he had managed to capture a live unicorn once.

He could feel the strong magic in the air. The water dragon was definitely here, most of the magic in the loch's water was fresh which indicated the creature was still here. That was good - when he'd decided to hunt the legendary Loch Ness monster Caven had been frightened when he'd begun reading whatever material he could find on the water dragon that the creature wouldn't be here. Water dragons were 70 percent water, and they could travel at terrific speeds that made submarines that were submerged look like a broomstick that had lost half of its back twigs, and they could travel from fresh to saltwater even if there was no tunnel in between. But no fear; Maurice had a plan to subdue the dragon so it couldn't escape, which was just as well because if he did let the dragon escape to sea, he'd never be able to catch it. It took the hunter 5 minutes to work through the amount of magic in the air, and he quickly found the magical detection net that had been thrown around the loch to protect the dragon from people like him, though if the dragon did manage to escape into the open sea he would never be able to find it because trying to find a dragon like this at sea was like looking for a cup of water dropped in a lake.

The detection net would be the hardest thing to deal with. When wizards and witches wanted to protect a rare magical creature, they had dozens of safeguards ordinary people lacked, and they knew what they were doing when they wanted to protect something as rare as a water dragon. A detection net would pick him up in a heartbeat and alert the authorities who would make sure he was sentenced to a very long stint in prison unless they simply drained him of his magical power, unless he found the guardian assigned to the loch to help protect the dragon. He couldn't feel her but he hadn't expected to either, this magical ability was only good against magical creatures who radiated magical power like a candle radiated light. Maurice would have to spend a lot of time tracking the guardian down and making sure the water dragon was still in the loch. He wasn't looking forwards to that, but he had to admit it would give him more time to find a more suitable place that was quiet and remote so no one would see what he was doing to the dragon.

Caven hoped the dragon hadn't sensed him when he'd magically 'touched' the landscape as he'd tried to learn more about the loch and its geography as the wizard walked through the undergrowth on the hill, but he would have to be more subtle and patient, but he had both in spades. But the hunter knew from hard earned experience never to underestimate magical creatures and beasts; many of them were more naturally powerful than humans, and they had senses a human could only dream about. If the dragon had detected him then Maurice had lost the element of surprise, but still the dragon would only be aware of his presence. His actual plan would still work, in the meantime he would only have to hope that the dragon had sensed his probe but he had moved on, so the dragon would still be in the loch. Hopefully. It would take time but after he was finished with the so called loch ness monster he would be set for life. Now he would begin finding the roots of the detection net and find the weakest ones there were, and try to find where they linked to and then deal with the guardian.

* * *

Mildred looked up at the dragon deadpan. "You want me to save you, from what and from who?"

"There is a wizard hunter in the area, Mildred," the dragon replied. "I have been feeling him for a while now. When I felt him and knew for sure what he was here for, I left the loch for a few weeks. He was still here when I returned, and I have felt several powerful spells cast on the loch recently."

"What do these spells do?"

"They are not harmful, thankfully," the dragon explained, and there was something in its expression that looked like relief but Mildred was unsure. "They are simple tracking spells. You have to bear in mind if the hunter used a spell that was too harmful or too overpowered then the net would be triggered."

Mildred frowned. "Net?"

The dragon nodded its massive draconic head, the water moulding around it not missing a droplet. "There's a detection net thrown all around the loch. It was placed around the loch centuries ago to ensure my safety from wizard hunters. In the your world, normal people have taxidermy and there are heads of animals like stags and lions that were mounted, were there not?"

Mildred remembered the last time she had seen an example of taxidermy. It had made her sick to see what had once been a live, moving and happy vixen reduced to that, and it had been in that state for 100 years if the label was to be believed. Now a year into her magical education Mildred had seen how corrupt some witches could be, so it didn't really surprise her to know there were wizards and witches who hunted magical animals for the sake of it. Amazing - she had only met two corrupt witches who were so obsessed with revenge that they had given her some ideas of how many others had turned to crime themselves. A wizard hunter didn't surprise Mildred, but she was glad she wasn't dealing with one as self serving as Agatha. She nodded to the dragon's question when she realised it actually wanted an answer and waited for it to continue speaking

"Wizard hunters are the same. They hunt magical creatures either because of a need to kill, but they are also very greedy and wish to have us dissected to learn our secrets. Wizard hunters are mercenaries, they use their powers to cause pain and death. They are uncaring and callous about how many they have to make suffer to get the profit they want while taking the rest and turn them into a trophy."

"Is there no way you can leave?" Mildred asked trying to make plans that didn't involve her making a fool out of herself, swallowing her need to help the water dragon from the kind of fate it had just described, okay it hadn't exactly described what would happen to it in detail but Mildred could picture it herself. She imagined the hunter, whoever and whatever he looked like, looking down smugly at the prone body of the dragon before taking it to some laboratory full of cauldrons puffing smoke into the air with witches and wizards circling around the body. Mildred didn't know if the dragon's idea of dissection was the same as hers, but it made her think of the hideous stories she had heard about scientists and doctors dissecting animals. With that in mind she had no trouble picturing the water dragon lying on a massive metal slab - she didn't know how big the dragon was, it was certainly big to her, but she had no idea if what she was seeing was just a small part of what could potentially be something enormous.

The dragon's reply made her focus. "I can, but if I leave then what would stop the hunter from pursuing me? I doubt it would go that far; I can leave for the open seas where I'd be safe, but what if he's here when I return, or goes away and comes back some other time? I need help and you can help me Mildred," the dragon said.

Frustration rose in Mildred's chest. She was getting sick and tired of the dragon telling her that she was it's last hope when she knew it was true, that she was the only other magician in the area the dragon could really trust, and on top of that she was getting physically and mentally tired after the day she and her mum had been out on the loch, and it hadn't helped that the dragon had invaded her brain with its voice without giving a thought to how it might affect her. "Look, I'm flattered you want me to help you," Mildred said wondering if the dragon could pick up on the half truth since she wasn't really flattered by the plea for help, not when she was struggling to stay awake. "But I'm not a fully trained witch. I can't even brew a potion or cast a spell correctly. How am I going to face a wizard hunter who's more experienced?"

"The reason you have problems with your spells is because you are focusing on the incantations you find in books," the dragon replied and Mildred got the impression the creature was in fact amused by her. "At Cackles when that dreadful twin of your headmistress tried to destroy the school, did you use a spell found in a book?"

Mildred paled when she realised just how far the dragon had read her mind. "Yes," she said defiantly back at the dragon, annoyed the creature had invaded the privacy of her mind so blatantly without caring about how she'd feel. "It was something I made up at the last minute."

"And didn't Agatha say to you during that confrontation in the woods outside the cottage she'd been imprisoned in for a year that witches didn't call for help and helped themselves? True magical people do not recite spells from books, Mildred. They make the spell their own. Many people have their own style of doing things. Most witches and wizards do the same thing. Those spell books describe the theory of the spells, but that is because a good witch always makes her own spells. I believe you are a good witch, but no one has bothered to give you that lesson."

Mildred quirked an eyebrow, picturing herself casting a spell at the dragon to zip its mouth shut. She quickly shook her head to rid herself of the tempting fantasy and thought of what the dragon had just told her. Besides from the look she had just received from the dragon's slit eyes, it already knew what had been going through her mind.

When she had begun that chant looking up at Agatha and Miss Gullet as the school collapsed around them, Mildred hadn't thought about checking the spell books in the library for anything that could help her and the others from stopping the two evil witches. Her spell was more made up as she'd gone along, but it had worked. Agatha's spell which was destroying the school was undone and everything else the deranged woman had done with her lackey had been undone as well - Miss Cackle had been freed along with Miss Hardbroom, the Great Wizard had been restored, and Esmerelda had been returned to human form.

Deciding to test her new found knowledge later in safety, Mildred looked back up at the dragon. "Okay, but why can't the person looking after you, well look after you?"

Mildred knew digging in her heels wouldn't really work, but still she had to ask.

"Alas, she has disappeared," the dragon replied sadly, though the way the great and long neck moved like a snake showed her the dragon was displeased its guardian had done a runner. Mildred wasn't pleased either, in fact if she met the woman she might just slap her. "She may not have the strength to deal with the hunter, but her presence near the net would attract attention from people like the Great Wizard."

The idea of simply getting the Great Wizard here to clean up this mess was too compelling - Mildred had no problems helping others when they needed it, but this might be too much for her, and besides after their last meeting she was sure that she had earned a favour from the man, the look of gratitude he had sent her before he had departed after making sure the picture which showed the trapped Miss Gullet and Agatha was safe, and giving Esmerelda her powers back. The only problem was she didn't know how to personally contact him, and from what Maud and Enid had told her they were going on their own holiday trips and wouldn't be home for weeks. So they were out and she couldn't mirror call them.

Realising she didn't have a chance of arguing, she sighed, "Okay, I'll help you."

Mildred quailed at the look of happiness - if that was happiness and not satisfaction - on the dragon's face. Oh boy - she hoped she wasn't going to regret this.

* * *

Mildred was amazed as the dragon took them underwater and into a massive underwater cave after diving and then speeding through the water like a submarine speedboat. When they emerged from the water, Mildred was even more amazed when she realised that although she'd been submerged in water so she couldn't really see anything that tried to counter the magical glow of the dragon. The dragon had told her to get onto its back, something she didn't want to do, more than aware of the water that was still moulding over the dragon's form. But when after a while of insistence from the creature she'd done it, she was amazed that the water didn't soak her or her clothes. In fact it was like some other material that looked like water but didn't come away with her hand dripping. She was aware that somehow the dragon had stopped her from drowning and getting wet, though what magic it used to do that, she didn't know. The dragon let her get off on a rocky shore and she stumbled slightly before getting a hold over herself.

Mildred brushed her hands over herself, head, hair, face, clothes and so on, and she didn't come up with a single patch of wetness anywhere and then she realised there was a glow that wasn't coming from the dragon.

The dragon itself had swam to another part of the cave, so Mildred had to get to him. It was a dangerous trek, many of the rocks were slippery and more than once Mildred almost lost her balance and fell into the cold water. After a harrowing journey where she'd almost broken her ankle or fallen into the cold loch water, Mildred arrived at where the dragon was. The dragon was looking down but there was a chunk of granite blocking her view.

Behind the rock was probably the most largest diamonds Mildred had ever seen. It was huge, it must've been at least 3 feet across and was glowing a pure white light that strangely didn't blind her like those LED lights.

The diamond was sitting nestled inside a metal ring with strange symbols engraved on it. Mildred closed her eyes when she felt the diamonds' magical power wash over her.

"How many of these diamonds are there?" she asked quietly, awed by the size and majesty of the diamond, but she also felt a little intimidated by its clear power. All her instincts honed over the past year at Cackles were screaming for her to leave, but she stayed because she didn't know how to leave.

"At least 7 of them. The guardian who protects me has a way of monitoring the status of the net."

Mildred looked up at him. "Why would the hunter have to be careful with these diamonds and the net? Surely as a wizard he'd find a way around it-"

"This isn't like the security systems found in houses and shops in the non magical realm," the dragon said seriously. "The net which protects the loch from hunters like him was designed originally to cast layers of magical spells that were designed to mingle with the magic around the highlands. The hunter will know that and he will also try to find the guardian so he can manipulate the net so he can get to me."

The subject of the guardian witch made Mildred frown. "Where do you think she is. Does she make it a habit to just run off like this?"

"The guardian looking after me isn't the best I have ever had," the dragon said, and it seemed to look longingly around the cavern. "Ah, the last one was far better, but he retired. He was the guardian for 40 years. This new one has only been around for 3."

"Not a very good one if she goes away and abandons you. The idea of someone looking after somebody else is to look after them, not clear off to god knows where," Mildred commented before a thought occurred to her. "How would this wizard hunter try to catch you? I mean, you are powerful-"

"The hunter's main priority will be to find the witch supposedly protecting me, and if he can't find her then he will try to locate one of these diamonds. He will know not to push them too far, but he will have the knowledge needed to affect one to affect the others, to shift the net to make it easier for him to capture or kill me. But if he pushes the protection scheme around the loch too far then he will alert the authorities, and that is the last thing he wants to do. Wizard hunters are notorious in the world. At first they were a benefit when some magical creatures, including other but more fearsome dragons terrorised the lands, but when wizards learnt how to communicate with them, the hunters weren't needed. But they didn't disband. They had become too used the profits they received from circuses and from potion brewers who used the animals that were killed to make potions. Soon many of the hunters began going too far. They killed unicorns, phoenixes, griffins and others for either the thrill of the hunt, or they wanted money. It's a disgusting practice, and it has helped to drive many beings to extinction," the dragon said sadly.

Now Mildred could see for herself why the hunter was after the water dragon. "What do you want me to do?" Mildred asked, looking at the water dragon. "How do I fight him?"

"It may only be necessary to distract him - the wizard will be occupied with holding the net and stopping anything from alerting the authorities he's here. By distracting him and his attention he will lose the window of opportunity he needs to subdue me without disturbing the crystal. Once he has disturbed it, the authorities shall come and deal with him. I shall help you the best I can, but I will not be able to do much."

Mildred glared at the dragon. "Thanks, thanks for telling me now," she grumbled. "You couldn't have told me that earlier, could you when I was worried about facing off against a professional and qualified wizard?" Mildred sighed and closed her eyes. She was tired, she wanted to get back to the cottage she and her mum were renting, and just fall asleep. The dragon bridled at her tone, but he realised the young witch was getting tired.

After getting her back to the shore where she'd left her broomstick the dragon left Mildred after the witch had promised to help him, and to also come whenever he called - the thought of being at the beck and call of a dragon was a new experience for her, just as much as actually flying a broomstick was.

* * *

Author's note - I have to apologise for the amount of time its taken me to update this story, I have been busy with a new Doctor Who story that will take up a lot of my concentrated and efforts. But don't worry, I'm going to pay as much attention to the Worst witch as I can. While I like some of the movies I sometimes think that Harry Potter should stop and be more hesitant rather than super confident, so the Worst witch is much better because Mildred is always so lacking in confidence, and yet she always thinks on her feet.

Here, she considers all the options she has instead of just saying yes to the dragon, so I hope that was believable and realistic. By the end of these summer experiences Mildred will have seen and experienced quite a bit. More to come.


	4. Chapter 4 The Hunter Strikes

Disclaimer - I don't own the Worst Witch, just this story and the ones in my profiles.

Feedback - Useful critiques will really be appreciated. Please make them better than something repeated in numerous stories, chapter by chapter, they get boring very easily.

* * *

The Hunter Strikes.

After being up for hours the night before speaking to the Water dragon, Mildred was understandably very tired. The good news was when she'd gotten back her mum was still asleep, so she got to bed quickly without disturbing her, though truthfully she didn't get back until 1 o clock, which was at least better than 3 in the morning. Fortunately Julie was still asleep but in the early morning, however, Mildred was wide awake and thinking even if she had only had a few hours sleep under her belt.

She still found it hard to believe what she had seen during the night, in fact she had problems thinking despite the most exciting thing.

She had seen the Loch Ness Monster!

The childish part of Mildred's mind wanted to leap up with joy that she'd seen the legendary monster, but it was tempered by the knowledge that others had seen it, but seeing and speaking to an intelligent magical creature was still exciting for her. She wondered how her friends would take it, but they would probably say they'd encountered the dragon when they were kids or something.

But the excitement she felt was spoilt slightly because of what the dragon had told her about the hunter. Mildred's successes against Miss Gullet and Agatha Cackle had only come down to sheer luck. If she had had the kind of upbringing that girls like Esmerelda, Felicity, Ethel and Enid had then maybe she could stand up against an older, more experienced wizard.

But this wizard was different. He was a hunter, and he probably wouldn't care about hurting anyone who got in his way, especially a girl not even in her teens yet. The dragon hadn't touched upon what would happen to the guardian witch who was supposedly responsible for his care and protection, but Mildred had enough common sense to work out what would happen to the guardian if the hunter found her.

The guardian would probably be murdered.

And if Mildred got in his way….. Would he even care about killing a preteen girl?

Mildred felt cold just thinking about it, and she asked herself if she should interfere with the hunter's plans directly. Maybe she could be there and stop him without being seen? Could she do that, though? Could she actually deal with the hunter without been seen, what if he uncovered her hiding place and killed or injured her? He would be more experienced than her, after all, and Mildred had encountered enough adult witches and wizards to know they were more higher on the level than someone like her. The Water dragon had told her she wouldn't be alone in dealing with the hunter, and while she was pleased by that since she still wasn't ready enough to stand on her own two feet magically, she did feel a bit annoyed the dragon hadn't told her that little fact without putting pressure on her shoulders.

Another problem on her mind was her mum. Julie encouraged her a great deal, but Mildred knew that her being a witch was unnerving since there was no way Julie could understand some of the subjects. The prospectus Cackle had given her after that disastrous Selection day had managed to help her understand the basic principles of the lessons to a point - the people who'd written the prospectus had assumed the readers were magical themselves, and would know what the subjects were about.

Plus there was the issue of what had happened only a few weeks ago. Julie hadn't been impressed with her actions, how she had just disobeyed HB and gone to that cottage in the forest, losing her broom and having to deal with the real threat of Agatha and Miss Gullet at the same time - all because she had jumped to conclusions about Miss Cackle's mental state at the time. And she hadn't been too pleased when Mildred had grabbed a cleaning mop and used it as a broomstick to take her back to the academy, and stopping the two evil witches from turning students into cakes and forcing teachers into paintings. There was only so much her mother would put up with, and while her mother was open minded and casual, Mildred had learnt a long time ago never to push her too far.

A wizard hunter, someone who trapped and killed magical creatures, or simply sold them off to zoos and laboratories for cash who wouldn't give a damn about murdering witches or wizards who got in the way wouldn't let a little thing like age get in the way of a fortune, might be what finally made her mother crack, and Mildred had begun to suspect there was a rift growing between her and her mother.

It wasn't a nice feeling. What made it worse was Mildred didn't know how to fix the rift except hope for the best, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt she couldn't tell her mother about the hunter. She could tell her about the dragon, and how it lived in the loch and was magically protected by a guardian, and she could tell her mother she wanted to spend some of her time with the creature without giving too much away. But the problem was what if something happened to her, something beyond her control? Something she simply could not hide? Her mother was many things, ignorant was not among them. It would break her heart if Mildred suddenly kept secrets away from her, dangerous ones as well, and she had always told her mother about things that happened, either at school or around her.

She wasn't going to tell her lies.

Not now.

But how would her mother react?

* * *

"No, Mildred."

"Mum, I know how you feel. I don't like it anymore than you do," Mildred said in protest. "After what happened with Agatha and Miss Gullet I don't really want to deal with evil witches or wizards again. But the dragon won't leave me alone. You saw and heard what happened yesterday, and last night. It got into my head, drove me out of my mind mum. Can you imagine what it would do if I just ignored it?"

Julie glared at her daughter, her patience with magic dying slightly. She had woken up this morning in a good mood, hoping she and her daughter could spend some quality time with each other, only to hear this. When Mildred had told her she'd flown out over to the loch and met the Loch Ness monster and discovered it was a magical creature, a water dragon, she had been enthralled. It made sense to her the monster was magical, otherwise how else could it have hidden itself for so long? But hearing that a hunter, some kind of magical hunter was after the dragon, and that the same water dragon wanted to use her daughter to protect it because the person supposedly looking after it was useless was making her angry.

She didn't want her daughter to keep putting her life in jeopardy. She had been upset with Mildred when her daughter had told her about what had happened before the last term at Cackles' ended. But she had to admit that she was proud of her child for caring enough to worrying about her headmistress, but she cursed Ada Cackle for not putting Mildred's mind at ease. Still she was proud that she had been reinstated at the school, though deep down she wondered if Cackle's academy was really right for her.

Mildred had often told her how…strange the school was, how little she truly knew about the lessons and everything about magic. It was akin to moving to another country and learning that everything you'd known before was little help. Julie was tempted, really tempted, to write Cackle's a letter telling them to give Mildred some help out of concern for her daughter.

But hearing that a dragon wanted Mildred to help it was more than Julie could stand. Mildred had told her some of what the hunter might do, though her lack of knowledge of what they could do was showing. That worried Julie, who could read between the lines and see that Mildred genuinely did not have a clue about what could happen if she went on a fool's quest to help the dragon.

Julie wanted to meet the creature for herself, partly out of fascination and partly to find out if putting her daughter's life in danger was really necessary, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the answer. Plus how did she know the dragon would speak to her, with all the protections around it and the loch, how did she know the protections that were around Cackle's which prevented normal people like her from seeing the school weren't similar to the ones around Loch Ness?

Julie sighed. "Mildred, it was awful when I left you back at the flat and then returned to find you were gone again," she whispered. "I can't stand the thought of you risking your life, only for something to kill you!"

Mildred swallowed. Julie was pleased the same thought had entered her daughter's mind, she didn't let it show though. Maybe what had happened with Agatha and that evil teacher of hers had done some good after all.

"Did the dragon tell you anything about when this hunter might make his move?"

Mildred shook her head. "No."

Okay, so she knew it was dangerous.

While Julie stewed, Mildred said her piece. "Mum, I didn't want this to happen anymore than you did. I wanted to spend my time with you seeing the sights like we normally do on holiday. I didn't know the Loch Ness monster would latch onto me to help protect it because its real guardian is neglectful and so stupid to go off on her own. I'm as annoyed as you are, because it doesn't just ruin my holiday but it ruins yours as well."

Mildred had to hide her cringe when she saw the look on her mum's face. Julie sighed, got up and walked away. Watching her go Mildred felt truly guilty, because now she saw there was a gap widening between them and their solid relationship. Her emotions got to her and she kicked the table in frustration, a move completely unlike her.

Cursing the dragon for this new mess, Mildred stood up and gently went to look for her mother. She found Julie in the kitchen, unnecessarily cleaning the tops of the units, with equally unnecessary force. Mildred walked up behind her, and wrapped her arms around her slowly and cautiously in case her mother was so angry she didn't want to be touched by her just yet. Julie stiffened noticeably, but she didn't push Mildred away.

"I'm sorry," Mildred said, wishing she could say something more meaningful to her mother. "I didn't want this anymore than you did. But there's still a chance the hunter won't actually go after the dragon, not if he thinks the protective net which covers the loch will be too much of a problem. And there's a chance the stupid cow who's supposed to be doing this sort of thing anyway, but I don't know how to contact the magical authorities and warn them about the hunter."

Julie turned around and wrapped her arms around Mildred's neck, forcing the girl to rest her chin over her mother's shoulder. "I didn't want to fight with another witch or wizard who have god knows how many years of experience over me," she whispered. "I learnt my lesson after what happened. I was stupid, reckless, and I endangered myself when I went off like that."

Mildred wasn't just saying all this to placate her mother, and Julie knew it. Ever since she had been cornered by Miss Gullet and Agatha in the woods, Mildred had realised how reckless she could be, and she didn't like it one little bit. She had decided she'd take her time in case Agatha did find a way out of the picture the Great Wizard had sealed her inside and tried to regain her powers and plan another scheme to take the school away from Ada, though whether she'd bother after the girls had voted to stick with Ada when they'd found out what Agatha and Gullet had been doing behind their backs to those who crossed them was something even Mildred couldn't answer, but she wasn't going to expect Agatha had changed her mind about wanting the academy. She wasn't the type to give up.

Julie didn't say anything. She didn't need to - the silence was screaming her agreement only too well for Mildred's mind. Finally she pulled away until their faces were so close together their noses almost touched, but were separated by an inch. "Do you remember when you persuaded me to let you go to Cackles?"

Mildred's crow crinkled in surprise at the question. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Julie nodded in approval, and carried on. She'd been meaning to say this to her daughter for a long time. "When I heard it was a boarding school I was worried, mostly because boarding schools mean you'd be spending more time there than with me, but also because it was a magical school. When you told me about everything that went on, I was disappointed - not with you - but disappointed in the teachers like Cackle and Hardbrush-"

"Hardbroom," Mildred corrected with a smirk. Her mother knew full well what HB's name was, she just chose to forget it from time to time for reasons known only to her. It had become sort of a joke between them.

"Whatever, I was disappointed they hadn't taken the time to tell you more about magic and everything that surrounded it. You should be shown spells and potions in private tuition lessons, so then you won't fail your tests."

Mildred nodded gravely. When the dragon had told her about how spells really worked, Mildred had realised that it was such a simpler idea to think up a spell based on your own imagination, though there would be a foundation of spells you couldn't really make up, but adjust on your own. But now Mildred was hoping that with the new piece of knowledge that she had not been told, though she was displeased none of her friends and teachers had bothered to tell or teach her how to do it she was now excited because it would allow her imagination to surge up for the first time.

One thing she was proud of was when she'd gotten everyone at the school chanting that counter spell that reversed Agatha's annihilation spell and the other acts she and Gullet had cast over the school.

"Hopefully things will change in the coming term," Mildred said hopefully.

* * *

"Now, young witch," the dragon said gravely, its voice sounding as timeless at it was, like the creature had seen so many things over the centuries and would probably live to see more. "I shall help you develop the confidence to master magic."

Standing in the underground cavern again close to the underground pool, Mildred went very still, though she couldn't help but wonder how the dragon intended to do this. She watched in amazement as the dragon closed its eyes and the water flowing around and over its sinuous and sleek body like a million roller coaster rides going over the same tracks over and over again, glowing with magic as it went.

And then the dragon breathed on Mildred.

For a second the girl was frightened the dragon meant to immolate her as dragons out of legend and in film did, but the only thing to leave the dragon's mouth was steam, and even some of the water moulding the dragon's body transformed into steam that left its body and joined the spurting steam leaving the dragon's mouth and nostrils.

The steam enveloped Mildred. It was hot, and at first Mildred instinctively stepped back but then the steam washed over her like she was in a shower cubicle. Overwhelmed she closed her eyes as the magic washed over her. Yes, it was magic! She could feel her brain fill with magical concepts and ideas and theories that were so incredibly old they'd been lost to time. Unbidden she watched as a tall man with long brown hair wearing tatty robes holding a magnificent sword that seemed to glow with power as he drew the sword out of a beautiful lake. It would have been placid if it hadn't been glowing and bubbling like a freshly brewed potion.

In her mind Mildred watched as the man learnt the sciences behind magic and potions making, and as the man learnt them so did she. She saw the man learn how to cast spells and learn the arts of the enchantments, sometimes he read them in old books and scrolls which looked so old they were virtually falling apart even as the man delicately handled them in his own hands, and she witnessed as he spent years and years studying magic and all the while he barely aged a minute. But while the man was certainly skilled and powerful, there were many things he couldn't do. And that surprised Mildred; she'd had the impression this man was powerful, and he was in many fields.

And then he changed.

He stopped using magic as the scrolls and books determined it should be done, and found a way to re-invent magic until it resembled the magic Mildred herself was using at Cackles. It was the magic she was using at Cackles!

The image changed, this time showing a woman wearing a dress which was equally tattered as the man's own clothes, though there was something about her bearing which made the raggedy state of her clothes seem irrelevant. She was a beautiful and breathtaking woman, or would have been if there wasn't a permanently etched expression of hunger, greed, and weirdly enough innocence mixed in with the madness that was just about hidden from view, but appeared from nowhere with no warning.

She seemed familiar to Mildred somehow, but the girl could barely place where she'd seen the woman before. Instead she was content to just watch as the woman, like the man before her, practiced magic. But unlike the man who was more successful when it came to studying from books, the woman could barely seem to manage it.

Finally, she gave up, and decided to study magic the way she herself determined though truthfully the first thing she did was spy on the man which wasn't really difficult, she just needed to be a bit creative in the way she did it, but she managed it despite the man hiding his secrets so determinedly.

After seeing his technique and how he seemed to make spells up, the woman tried her own hand at it and her powers grew by leaps and bounds, but her actual talent was in potions and she pushed the boundaries of potions knowledge to the brink.

Whispers of their techniques passed into Mildred's mind, and she felt her brain swell with the knowledge of what she was learning. Mildred wasn't stupid as people often thought she was, nor was she simple. But she didn't believe that complicated solutions were always right - she always believed that the simpler the option, the better since it would easier to clean up afterwards.

As her brain tried to process what was coming into her mind, she knew she would need to spend time to herself, if she could get it, and learn what she could, it might take years but eventually she'd get there in the end.

Anyway, she also learnt something about the two sorcerers that the dragon had shown her.

They were Merlin and Morgana. Having their knowledge in her head made Mildred unsure of how she should be reacting, she had just absorbed their knowledge like a sponge because a dragon had passed it on. How had it managed to get all this knowledge anyway? Oh right, magic.

Silly her.

Well, actually the dragon wasn't giving her the knowledge of spells they had used, instead it simply gave her the theories behind their methods rather than simply fill her brain with spell upon spell. But that would change in a moment or two.

Both of them had developed their own ideas for how magic should be manipulated and moulded to their wills; Merlin used words strung together to form incantations for his spells, so he had developed a really great knowledge of vocabulary. In contrast Morgana's method was simply to force magic to do what she wanted it to do with gestures and mental control. So, if she'd wanted to lit a room, all she would need to do would be to walk up to a candle, a lantern or a wall sconce, whatever, and wave her hand over it, initiating the size of the flame and think and will up a flame to light the room.

Despite being enemies (lovers and occasionally friends - like Mildred wanted to know that!), Merlin and Morgana did respect one another and occasionally they learnt much from each other despite their fights. Both of them exchanged information, though their method was simply one of them accidentally revealing something without meaning to, and letting the other work it out for themselves.

In time Merlin began using magic the way Morgana herself did, and vice versa in order to balance each other out, and with that their conflict just grew and grew.

But unlike King Arthur who viewed the woman like she was a monster, Merlin and Morgana actually viewed their conflict differently, sort of like a game of poker mixed with chess or battleships.

At the end of the conflict when King Arthur was dead, Morgana and Merlin themselves perished. But their magical secrets lived on. Morgana, surprisingly, was the first of the duo to begin training apprentices, but she had stopped fairly quickly before regaining her passion for teaching others what she had learnt about magic. They had chosen many apprentices over the years, and while the two were cautious about what they taught though they had decided to teach their apprentices pieces of their knowledge. Several apprentices taught by Morgana learnt varying levels of potions, others would have learnt enchanting, again at various levels.

Morgana was paranoid that if she taught her apprentices ALL her knowledge, they would become greater than her, so in an act of selfishness geared by jealousy, the great witch had limited the amount of knowledge each of her apprentices learnt. But there was a more practical reason to go with that one - Morgana had been training an apprentice, a young boy, and she had been more naive back then. She had taught him more than she would teach any of her future apprentices, and indeed it would be many years before she actually felt safe to train another in the arts of magic which she and Merlin had pioneered in different directions.

She had been forced to fight off this former apprentice when he misused the knowledge Morgana had taught him by becoming an evil sorcerer determined to cause even more chaos than Morgana herself had caused. She was forced to kill him in a long, drawn out duel. The fight was so nasty she had been forced to beg Merlin for help.

Okay, despite the rather unsightly gaps in each apprentices knowledge, they knew enough to really shape the future of magical society. And they did in different fields. And they worked well with the apprentices trained by Merlin.

Merlin had always been focused on exploring his knowledge like Morgana had, but unlike her he didn't have the foresight to train and to teach others until much later. But when he did he did much like Morgana had done; taught students a specific amount before letting them go off on their own. After learning for herself what had happened with one of Morgana's first apprentices, Mildred was unsurprised by the wizard's cautious approach, and in fact she wouldn't be surprised if that had been the primary reason for why it had taken him so long in the first place to actually get started.

After the two legendary sorcerers had passed on, died, said their last goodbyes, the former apprentices of Merlin and Morgana Le Fey had eventually met and joined forces to help the magical world grow. For centuries magic had been a subject of learning, but with Morgana and Merlin's influential work they changed it all.

But they had kept their secrets, and now Mildred Hubble, the Worst Witch of Cackle's academy and the first witch from a non witchy family, was rediscovering them for herself.

The dragon had been breathing steam at her for a long while, but because Mildred had been so lost in her mind and her thoughts with the influx of magical knowledge her brain had just received she found it hard to tell how long she'd been standing there, but she came to herself as the steam dissipated when the dragon stopped.

Mildred took a deep breath and blinked rapidly up at the dragon, who was looking down on her in amusement before it sank beneath the surface of the underground pool.

"How did you find out all that about Merlin and Morgana?" Mildred asked breathlessly, rubbing her eyes as if trying to massage a headache out of her skull.

The dragon lifted its head, and the water around its head moved around and joined the pool water as though the water itself was a glass sculpture.

"We magical creatures know many things about witches and wizards, and contrary to the people of magical Britain each country has its own versions of Merlin and Morgana; a powerful witch or wizard who grow into their own, and develops magic to a different level than what's known and traditionally accepted.

"I wanted to prove to you that even the greats struggled with tradition and they ushered in a new golden age of magical understanding, whether the traditionalists liked it or not."

Mildred blinked again. "You mean I'm going to change magical society?"

The dragon's lipless mouth showed the creatures' sharp pointed teeth in a smile, but it came off as sinister and predatory. "You might do. Haven't you already created…controversy over the fact you're a witch from a family which has never practiced magic? You were instrumental in rescuing the Great Wizard himself by creating that counter spell. You won that competition for your school, did you not?"

Mildred frowned a little at that one, still remembering the scholarship offer but she said nothing.

"I think Pippa Pentangle would have been fair minded, Mildred," the dragon said, once again proving to have as little tact as possible.

Mildred growled under her breath. "Do you have to rummage around through my brain?" she demanded.

She didn't mean to be rude, but she was so sick and tired of the dragon rummaging around in her mind instead of simply asking her what the problem was verbally, that way she could have given him a decent excuse about it being nothing at all. Instead the dragon just peeked into her mind like privacy was a concept beyond its comprehension.

But what had Mildred worried the most was the fact the dragon had been, from what she'd learnt just now, around for thousands of centuries. That implied it had spent most of those years alone. Was that what happened with immortal or near immortal beings, they lost sight of simple concepts like privacy?

The dragon blinked in surprise then it bowed its head. "Ah, forgive me. It is just your mind is so easy to read that I lose sight of the social niceties."

Mildred nodded, forgiving the dragon this time and deftly changed the subject. "Did you ever meet Merlin or Morgana?" she asked.

"No, I never had that honour, but I have met dozens of other powerful wizards over the years. But Morgana and Merlin shaped the history this country in ways so many have forgotten. Without their knowledge and their ingenuity, the Craft wouldn't be where it is now," the dragon replied, moving past the earlier rebuke smoothly.

Mildred scrunched up her face thoughtfully, and nodded. "Yeah, I can see that," she said, "how can I change the magical world? Does that have to do with Morgana and Merlin?"

The dragon's answer was typically cryptic. "It could be, Miss Hubble."

* * *

Sitting on top of a rock by the shoreline, Mildred was smiling as she drew the dragon on a massive sketchpad - she planned to use her watercolour paints to truly bring the picture out, but for now she just wanted to enjoy the scene - while keeping her mind off the colossal task the dragon had set down for her. Indeed it was dangerous for the dragon to be exposed like this, but she'd needed the moonlight to truly pick out the dragon's shape and form, and the dragon itself had been reluctant to expose itself.

But while there'd been no sign of the wizard hunter who wanted the water dragon for god knew what reason, Mildred didn't want the dragon to live in fear, and besides while there were good advantages to just hiding there was also the chance the hunter would find the dragon no matter where it hid itself.

Mildred was getting into her stride when the dragon distracted her from her work. "Mildred, I would like to leave and return to my cave now," the dragon said. "I'm too exposed."

"I know. But you can't live in fear forever," Mildred replied.

She had a plan. Yeah, the Worst Witch had a plan, but she wasn't sure if she could make it work. The plan was straightforward enough, expose the dragon in a large enough area, and then hide itself and travel around the lake before moving out of the loch itself and into the open sea where it could spend as long as it wanted away from the loch, to freedom and would be able to travel to any lake in the world it wanted to go to before it decided to return to Loch Ness, if it ever did. Mildred hadn't told the dragon yet because she'd wanted it close to the surface, swimming around for a short period before she explained what she wanted it to do. She hadn't told the dragon anything yet because honestly, she had just thought the plan up.

Mildred knew it was careless of her, but she was still unsure if she could take on a fully trained wizard. She had experimented a little with the knowledge the water dragon had passed onto her about Morgana and Merlin. Completely out of sight of her mother, that is. Mildred sighed a little in sadness as she thought about her mum. She and her mother had always shared a bond, and she resented her life as a witch getting in the way of that bond.

But while she'd managed to make some headway and made spells which actually worked, Mildred had to admit that her spell knowledge wasn't that good or high yet, that was why she was reluctant to even take on an adult wizard. Mildred knew her limits, and she knew that unless she continued to practice she'd never be able to handle a magical fight. Her mind went back to that mess where Agatha had managed to take over the school and put her own sister into that painting, Miss Hardbroom had hoped she'd be able to get Ada out of the portrait because she hadn't been in the school when Miss Gullet had cast that detection spell over the place, but it hadn't worked. Mildred had thought she'd gotten the spell wrong, but Miss Hardbroom said that a witch's power's grew over time.

Pushing those thoughts aside Mildred beckoned the dragon over to the shoreline. Mildred waited until the dragon's glowing form reached the beach before she opened her mouth to tell the creature what she had in mind -

* * *

The transportation spell was something Mildred had felt several times over the past year, and she disliked it. She didn't like having no control over where she ended up, hence the reason she planned to study the transportation spell and find a way to stop it working on her again unless she wanted it to.

Mildred blinked when the haze that came with forced magical transportation faded away, and when she did she wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Her eyes widened in horror when she realised she was in the same cave as the diamond, where that was that looked like a red magical cage lit over it, but her eyes caught sight of the dragon. The creature's magical glow, the water which moulded itself over its body to sculpt new forms…. were gone leaving behind a large black shape. The dragon was virtually unconscious.

"No," Mildred whispered and ran down to the dragon's head, she reached out a hand and stroked its scales. "I'm so sorry, this is all my stupid fault."

The feeling of the girl's hand and the sound of her voice was enough to rouse the dragon. It's eyes flickered open, and focused on her, but it was like a sleepy person just waking up after getting only a few hours sleep.

"Mildred?" Mildred frowned in worry and concern at the sound of the dragon's voice; it was no longer clear, deep and resonant, now it sounded like a drunken slurring drawl.

"I'm sorry, this is all my fault."

"No, young witch," the dragon seemed to be using all its energy to just get the words out. "It would have happened sooner-"

"But I'd wanted you to show off a little bit before getting out into the open sea away from here," Mildred interrupted harshly, angry at herself and with the dragon for lying there telling her it wasn't her fault when she knew it was. It had no right to tell her none of this was her fault. The blame lay with her, the hunter, and the idiot guardian.

"You could have moved off to a different lake, away from here and safe," Mildred finished.

The dragon seemed to chuckle. "Would that have helped?" It asked rhetorically. "If there is one hunter, there are bound to be more, just like there are bound to be dozens of humans in both worlds like Adolf Hitler, or Agatha Cackle."

Mildred said nothing because it was true. She had never really liked it when her own species created monsters that seemed only to cause more death and destruction. Why, what was the point? The dragon was right about there being more than one hunter out there, and the thought that she would be responsible for the dragon being hunted no matter where it went made her sick.

"Your dragon is right," another voice said, "there are others of us. But I'm not going to let another like me take my prize."

Mildred's head shot up and she caught sight of the figure gazing down at her with a mocking smile. She didn't need to ask him who he was, she knew.

The wizard hunter had caught them both.

* * *

Author's note - I am so sorry for the long wait, but I hope this chapter will be worth it. I also hope to finish Two Religions soon, but at the moment I'm busy with two other projects, but I haven't abandoned this story or Two Religions.

Ciao.


	5. Chapter 5 Serendipity

Disclaimer - I don't own the Worst Witch. Unfortunately.

Feedback, highly appreciated if you like.

Serendipity.

The wizard looked between the young girl and the water dragon for a moment before he grinned cruelly, and he raised his hands and got a spell out and it surrounded the diamond. The effects on the dragon was immediate, and the water that surrounded it just fell back into the water, leaving its black draconian form behind.

The dragon suddenly wheezed out and its head dropped to the ground, its neck splashing in the water. Mildred was immediately by its side, ignoring the cold lake water as she tried to help it, but she didn't know what to do for the dragon. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that the hunter had created a staff, or maybe he'd conjured it out of thin air or something - either way it didn't matter to Mildred. The hunter's staff glowed as he concentrated on using a spell, and the magic surrounding the diamond became grid like. It reminded Mildred of those movies where thieves would crawl under laser beams guarding a priceless relic or painting. And she realised he was stopping the diamond from triggering the alarms on the loch, and she felt her heart go cold. With that diamond covered there was no chance to get help.

What could she do about this? She wasn't a very good witch, and the spells she'd recently experimented with were only meant to do little things together in the practice of the spells. She hadn't learned or tried using spells that were meant to defend her from harm or injury. Mildred had hoped that with some time to herself, she could have gradually learnt to use the magical knowledge the dragon had passed over to her to make her own defence spells.

When the wizard was finished, he walked over to the girl, his eyes narrowed and his forehead crinkled. "What's a young witch doing down here with a water dragon?" he asked rhetorically, and then he laughed. "Oh, I see," he said mockingly, grinning at the dragon who whimpered shakily. "She your new guardian? Well, I must say they must be scraping the barrel if they're recruiting children for such work."

Why was it nearly every witch and wizard she met, barring a few, seemed to treat her like shit and view her like shit? Mildred stood up; if she could face Agatha Cackle and Miss Gullet, and put up with the likes of Ethel and Drusilla while speaking to Miss Hardbroom, she could do the same with this man. "You don't have to do this," she said reasonably. "Why don't you just go, forget the dragon and leave?"

The wizard laughed mockingly. "Sorry, was that supposed to be a threat? If so, not a good one. I'm Maurice Caven, the most skilled Wizard hunter in the world. Why should I do something like that for you, a young witch who looks like she's not even a teenager?"

Mildred ground her teeth. She had hoped the man would be reasonable, that he would simply give up and leave after realising she was there, but she had not realised he was too much of a sociopath. Agatha was one thing, but this guy seemed to make even her look like an amateur. And then Mildred realised the difference between the pair of them; Agatha had wanted only one thing in life, the Academy. This guy wanted every magical creature he could find, and either mount them on a wall, or he would just sell them to a zoo or something along those lines.

The hunter walked closer to her with such grace that it would have put a panther to shame, not bad for someone so big. "What do I do with you?" he asked her; it seemed to be his means of communication, she thought, ask stupid questions and pose them as scenarios, but she had a good idea what he was planning to do with her, and she felt sick.

He was planning to kill her if she didn't do something.

The Wizard hunter looked down at the girl seriously. Caven didn't like hurting children, particularly foolish ones, and this girl was foolish enough to have gotten involved. He was tempted to let her go, but her simple view of the world grated on his nerves; he knew it would take some time but the girl would learn eventually when she was older what the world was truly like.

As he studied the young girl in front of him, Caven examined her with his eyes; he had a lot of respect for women, but even he knew when a girl would grow up to be beautiful, and this girl fit that particular mould only too well. He wasn't a pervert or a pedophile, and he did go out of his way to ensure no magical child was kidnapped and put through sexual slavery.

He also saw this girl looked tensed up for a fight, and he sighed wearily. He was an experienced and powerful wizard who had travelled the world for decades - he wasn't going to be overcome by a little girl.

In her mind Mildred was busy chanting a spell - it was bit rough and ready, and a bit crude, but she hoped it would work - it was all she could do.

" _Snakes and rope, long and thin, ice and rock, form a whip to smash this wizard with a clubbing,"_ she thought, and watched in awe as the water in the cavern suddenly formed into a snakelike form, and then whipped the wizard hunter in side. The hunter went flying into a smaller pool with a loud splash, but he recovered quickly and Mildred found herself screaming as she was launched through the air and into the deeper lake.

The moment she found herself in the cold water, Mildred began to panic - she wasn't the best swimmer in the world, and since she'd been launched into the water without preparing herself for how freezing the water was her panic was too hard to ignore.

" _ **Mildred, don't panic. I'll see if I can help you get back to the rocks,"**_ the dragon whispered into her mind, sounding incredibly weak, but he was clearly strong enough to move one of his flippers over underneath her body and pull it towards him. Mildred was shivering violently by the time she'd climbed up to the top of the dragon's back.

The hunter glared at her from her perch as she slid down the back to the head, and then jumped off the dragon's neck and head onto the rocks where she stumbled slightly before her equilibrium righted itself. Shivering slightly, she looked up at the wizard. Mildred had seen many angry people in her life - her mother, teachers in both primary and secondary schools, friends, but none of them had a look of anger like this guy, and Mildred felt truly afraid. This guy made Agatha Cackle seem like an amateur, she'd already guessed that. But then Agatha's mind was so one track, this guy was more complex.

"I didn't want to hurt you," the hunter said, though his actions told a different story.

Mildred said nothing to him; he wouldn't say anything to him that he'd listen to, and she was trying to work out what she could do to stop him. Her inner turmoil didn't go unnoticed by the hunter, or the dragon for that matter.

The wizard hunter chuckled. "Seriously, you can't think of a way to stop me after you'd used that water spell? What kind of a witch are you, didn't you know that a witch helps herself?"

"I did, yeah, as a matter of fact," Mildred replied, recalling what Agatha had told her in the woods after her broomstick had been destroyed.

"Then why not help yourself?" the Wizard mocked, finding the girl both contemptible and amusing at the same time. To him she was nothing but a joke, sadly enough, but he had to admit the spell she'd used had been good.

Mildred's chest rose and fell as she felt the anger burn through her body, if there was one thing she hated above anything else it was being mocked. It was bad enough people high up in magical society like the Great Wizard saw her as a bit of a menace, but she wasn't going to be mocked by a murderer who made his living by killing magical creatures like the Water Dragon behind her.

She didn't bother to say anything to the hunter, a plan was trying to form in her mind. The wizard was not too far from where the diamond was, the only problem she had was she would be unable to do anything about it. If she fired a spell at it, what was to stop the Great Wizard from blaming her for this disaster this time? While the spell she and the others had used to restore and rebuild Cackles from the annihilation spell at the end of last term and restored him, Miss Cackle, Miss Hardbroom and Esmerelda from the harm caused by Agatha and Miss Gullet's brief reign of terror, that didn't mean the Great Wizard's attitude towards her had changed. He had developed a sort of grudging respect for her, but that was all. It wouldn't take much for that respect to disappear.

And then it occurred to her.

Thinking up a spell, or thinking about what she wanted done, she began to glow with magical power - Mildred caught a quick look of shock on the hunter's face as she began to glow with magic, but she ignored it completely - and she used her mind to hold him in a vicelike grip, and she slammed him into the rock wall behind him as hard as she could before she lifted him up again. The wizard tried to fight back, but Mildred wouldn't let him.

She concentrated long and hard on the magic, and then she threw him into the magical grid.

Too late, the wizard screamed, "Noooo, you little bitch!"

Mildred ignored him, but she grimaced when the alarm suddenly went off. She felt a shadow fall over her, and heard the sound of water flowing and trickling and she turned and found the water dragon looming over her, the water from the loch water in the cavern flowing over its body like a cloak again.

"Thank you, young witch," the dragon said, and Mildred could tell that although his strength was coming back he was still weakened a little after being cut off from the water for such a short time.

"Are you alright?" she asked, concerned.

The dragon's mouth lifted in a smile, the water curving like lips moving upwards. "I am fine, young witch," it said, "I am recovering quickly, but being cut off from the water for such a short time caused a lot of pain for me."

"I can imagine," Mildred replied, remembering the way the dragon had whimpered. Then she remembered the wizard, but the dragon stopped her worries before they even began. "Don't worry Mildred, he won't be going anywhere," it said. "The magic contained in the diamond and the spell he cast have proven too much for his body to handle."

"Is it over?"

"For him, yes," the dragon replied before looking down at her seriously. "I'd leave if I were you, because that alarm will soon bring the magical authorities here."

Mildred nodded, and after wishing the dragon good luck, she turned and left the cave.

* * *

Relaxing in the water and letting his home element nourish him of the energy he had lost when the hunter's transportation spell had cut him off, the Water dragon said and did very little in the time between Mildred leaving the cavern and when the Great Wizard arrived in person with a squad of witches and wizards who were specialists in this kind of work.

The dragon's lips once more lifted into a smile, but no one had seen it.

"Maurice Caven," one of the party said, shaking his head.

"You know him?" the Great Wizard asked, but it was a rhetorical question; he too was familiar with Caven and his unsavoury reputation. It wasn't that hard. People like Caven were both rare and yet common at the same time.

"Yes, your greatness. He's one of the most brutal hunters there are," the other wizard replied.

Another witch, however, was magically examining him. "What happened to the guardian, that's what I'd like to know," she said.

"She didn't do this," another wizard said.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, it looks as though only one spell was used against him; there are signs of a spell where a stream of water was hardened like ice, and then used like a whip, but I think he was magically lifted into the air and then thrown into the alarm spell," the witch replied, amazed that anyone could have done this.

Magically lifting someone with a spell was more common than just be picked up with magic, whoever had done this was incredibly powerful magically. The water dragon's smile widened even more.

The Great Wizard walked over to Caven, determined to get some answers, though he knew the hunter wouldn't give them up willingly, and was prepared for that. Steeling himself magically, he approached the bound hunter. Caven had struggled instinctively upon finding himself bound, but he had quickly given up when he'd realised he was hopeless like this. He sneered a little at the Great Wizard as he towered over him. "So, Eggy Egbert," Caven sneered, "you've got me now."

Ignoring the taunt, the Great Wizard looked down at him with a glare. "What happened down here, Caven, and what did you do to the guardian?" he asked instead.

Caven chuckled darkly. "I didn't do anything to the guardian, I couldn't find hide nor hair of one, but I have to admit it's funny."

"What is?"

Caven sneered at him toothily. "I mean, using kids as guardians-"

"What?" Egbert whispered, genuinely surprised.

"She was just there with the dragon, just being with him when I caught them, brought them here with a transportation spell. I'd cut the dragon's power by stopping him accessing the water, but she was still there. Cute little thing, too," he grinned lecherously, but it disappeared quickly on seeing the glare on his fellow wizard's face. "I didn't do anything to her, I swear it."

The Great Wizard didn't relax; he might believe that Caven hadn't harmed or injured the girl he was describing, but Caven was a liar and a murderer, he didn't care who he hurt so long as he got what ever he wanted. Knowing from experience that his rival was dangerous and not to be trusted, the Great Wizard decided to play the sceptical card. "I don't believe you, Caven. I don't believe there was a child down here," he said, even if the evidence was there for all to see.

Maven's face contorted furiously, he didn't like being called a liar, especially by this pompous old idiot. "Oh, but there was," he ground out, "a short thing, round moon-like face, hazel eyes and long brown hair."

The Great Wizard stiffened as he processed the description, but he didn't say anything about it. Instead, he told the guards to stun Caven and get him out of the cave, but told them to be wary around him, that he was dangerous. When the hunter was gone, he turned to the dragon, who had been watching the whole scene quietly and with interested curiosity. "There was a girl down here, wasn't there?" he said.

The dragon nodded, recognising the rhetorical statement for what it was. "Yes," he replied simply.

"Was it-?"

"Mildred Hubble, yes," the Water dragon replied. To his mind, Mildred's achievement here was another sign of her future, and besides the Great Wizard was bound to find out sooner or later she'd been here and would eventually put 2 and 2 together. "And before you even ask, I called her to me so she could help reassure me; I'd already sensed Caven's presence, but I couldn't do anything about it and the guardian had left without a word."

The Great Wizard shook his head. "I'm going to have to reevaluate the guardian system," he whispered to himself, nodding in thought before he looked up at the dragon again. "And Mildred threw him into the diamond?"

"Yes. She is a powerful witch, she just needs more encouragement to develop, but I think this summer she will soon find the next year better than the last one," the dragon said. "In the meantime, I can tell you what happened, just leave the girl alone. She has done a great deed today."

* * *

A/N; At first I'd planned for Mildred to meet with the Great Wizard but I decided against it for this chapter. He might be featured in the next, maybe he won't. But I want the next chapter to move on with the story.

Enjoy the rest.


	6. Chapter 6 The Awakening

Disclaimer - I don't own the Worst Witch. CBBC do and so does Jill Murphy.

The Awakening.

The problem with depending on non-magical people was you were completely unable to make up for their bungling. True, the Chinese witch had needed to use them to transport the precious cargo she had arranged to bring all the way from China, and they had done a very efficient job even though magical transportation was far superior and didn't need those stupid machines that flew; how they could be called graceful and elegant, she had no idea. They were clumsy, noisy, they were massive, and more to the point, slow compared to a broom or a flying carpet.

But the Chinese witch had been delighted when the cargo had been brought to this backwards and stupid country safely, even if she had thought it was taking forever, but she had needed to take the risk. It was dangerous what she planned to do in her home country - there had been dozens of cases in the past, many of them had failed, but her country, indeed the whole of Asia and the Middle east, had created a sensor web that picked up the kind of magic that her plans would use, and she'd be stopped and killed as a warning to others.

Europe had a sensor web as well, but it wasn't geared for this particular form of work. That was what made it so attractive.

But that didn't mean non-magical people didn't make mistakes, and the Chinese witch was quickly closing in on the biggest botch up yet.

 **DANGER - DEEP WATER.**

The sign was redundant, the woman thought to herself as she walked towards the crash site that had happened a day before, treading very carefully and slowly as opposed to her usual confident stride. The Chinese woman had a perpetual sneer on her face as she walked slowly towards the marsh, treading very carefully in case she tripped and fell into the water, but her expression turned ugly when she saw the white transit van sticking out of the marshes with its backdoors opened up. Half of the van was submerged. She knew that the driver and the man with him had managed to jump clear, but she wasn't sure what had happened in the first place.

Nor did she care. The only thing she cared about was what had been inside the van. Unfortunately, from what she'd gathered, the van's backdoors had swung open, and its precious cargo had fallen into the marshes where it had sunk out of sight.

When she had heard the news the van had crashed and that half of it had sunk under the water, she had hit the roof and used powerful and dangerous spells in a fit of rage, cursing having to use ordinary people who knew nothing of magic. Once more she had needed to remind herself the reasons behind coming to this country, and having to use ordinary people to move what she had wanted to be moved.

Magical people would never move something like this across the world, especially if they had any comprehension of what she had in mind for it. Besides it would leave a trail, and she had enough of a bad record that she was banned from travelling magically, and the chances of securing a licence were remote.

In any case, Necromancy was a dangerous and sometimes unpredictable magical art, there were even some practitioners who'd been doing it for three quarters of a century who didn't dare take on apprentices, and believed necromancy should be taught as a science and not be practiced, and that necromancy should be forgotten by all. It was a vicious circle that had not been resolved, and she doubted it ever would be since necromancy had so many amazing properties that couldn't be ignored. The Chinese woman herself had never before dabbled with necromancy, she had no idea what to expect from what she was planning to do, but she knew if she got something, anything, wrong, the consequences would be severe.

It was in that instance that every magical community on Earth simply refused to get rid or ban necromancy, because there were idiots out there who didn't are about the natural order of things, and they needed to be stopped. The only way to do that was to have necromancers who had a good understanding of the magical art of the dead and of the soul, otherwise an ordinary witch or wizard would be completely of their depth.

The Chinese woman pulled her coat around herself, she wasn't really that cold, but this coat was one of the few things she had of her country in this foreign land. She didn't like this place, either the magical or non-magical societies, even though the magical community made her feel glad to once again feel her magical heritage. Unfortunately, what she was about to do was dangerous, and if her countrymen realised what she was doing, she would be executed. That was why she was doing this abroad where her resources were limited, but she had plenty of material she believed she would need later in the future. She didn't know what the laws of this backwards country would do if they knew what her plans were, but if she was careful then she could get away with it without being detected, the only downside was she wasn't sure what the laws about this type of magic were like.

The woman began to steel herself over what she was about to do as she approached, she felt nervous and worried and for good reason.

She couldn't take the risk of carrying this out in her home country, which was the main reason why she had come to this ignorant, backwards country, the type of magic she was playing with was dangerous and carried penalties.

Once she had reached the site, the moonlight played across her face, highlighting her heart shaped face, long glossy black hair and almond shaped eyes, the moonlight also emphasised her smooth skin. Reaching into the inside of her coat, she pulled out a small scroll. After making sure she had enough lighting, the Chinese woman began chanting in Ancient Chinese. Her voice was smooth and soft at first, but as the second passed her voice became louder and louder. The water of the marshes began to bubble and churn as though boiled by a giant saucepan underneath the marsh. The clouds overhead rumbled, over the din the Chinese witch's chanting, and the rumbling changed until a bolt of lightning struck the boiling water. This dramatic show made the water explode all over the place, but something rose from the waters of the marsh.

The Chinese witch smiled as the massive form emerged from the marsh, the surface glistening in the light from the moon. It was a mummy, a terracotta mummy. Every move it made out of the marsh towards the witch who'd resurrected it from its sleep, made its joint clink-clink-clink that made it sound like it was a medieval knight marching off to battle with its armour jangling. The mud caught in the joints there were not meant to move created a wet sliding noise like a brick being sharpened by a whetstone, and as it drew nearer to the witch, she could see that its cracked terracotta was glistening and coated in brown gunk from the marsh water.

Despite resurrecting the mummy, the Chinese woman was rightfully worried since anything could happen with this type of ritual, anything could happen. The mummy stood in front of her, and the witch looked at the scroll again, and chanted the last part of the spell. The mummy froze and went rigid, then it bowed, pieces of its terracotta casing cracking and falling as it did to the ground.

The Chinese witch smiled in triumph.

* * *

Mildred Hubble gasped, nearly making her pen flick across the page and leave a nasty black smudge of ink in its wake in the shock of what she'd just felt. She had just felt….something odd….wrong in the air around her, but it felt a sickly feeling in her stomach and her chest. She looked down at her homework. Spell science, and she was halfway through it already when she felt that shock. She shook her head for a second, wondering what it was, but it quickly passed. Still she was curious about what had made her feel like she was about to be sick, but she wasn't rushing to the loo for a bout of projectile vomiting.

Mildred closed her eyes to master her breathing, and to stop her mother from seeing the state she was in. It had been a week since that business at Loch Ness, and she hadn't told her mother about what happened in the cave where she was trapped between a magically sick water dragon and a dangerous wizard who wanted to take the creature apart. She had told her mother that the hunter had been caught, but she hadn't told her about what really happened. Things between her and her mother…..they had reached an all-time low, and she knew it was magic that was to blame. While Julie had tried to learn more about magic and the culture that went with it, she was quite simply out of her depth. Mildred and she talked about the magical world, but since Mildred had more knowledge of it than Julie, it did cause problems.

It worried Mildred. It really did.

If things went the way they were, then the relationship she had with her mother might fracture beyond repair. Mildred couldn't talk to other people about it; Maud and Enid both had magical families, so it was doubtful either of them could help her or give advice since never of them had had to explain to their families about the magical world since they too were a part of it, and she doubted speaking to her teachers would help matters either.

Oh, they could speak to her about this and that, but they didn't know how they could solve the problems that were growing with the rift between her and her mum. It was a painful situation, Mildred thought to herself, hurt that the relationship that she had shared with her mother who was her only parent could be suffering because of magic. Even when Miss Cackle had accepted her into the Academy on a trial basis had been painful; Julie hadn't liked the fact that her daughter was going to be attending a boarding school. If it were a day school then perhaps she would have some idea of learning more about magic from Mildred without going to all the trouble of receiving mirror calls whenever Mildred could get permission, but unfortunately it was not meant to be.

Talking to non-magical people was out of the question as well. Mildred sighed and wondered what she could do to stop the train wreck she could now see speeding towards her and Julie, but she had no idea if it was even possible. Maybe if Cackles was a day school, she thought to herself as her mind returned to one of the root causes of the rift, perhaps things would be very different, but since the school was a boarding school it meant the time she got to spend with her mother was limited. Perhaps if it wasn't, then perhaps this widening rift wouldn't be as wide as Mildred believed it to be.

There was no chance she was going to describe the mess in the cave, who knew what would happen as a result?

But how was she going to talk about why she was suddenly feeling so physically ill? Mildred herself couldn't explain it, so how she could make her mother understand?

After getting herself a glass of water to steady her nerves, Mildred lightly sipped the drink and found herself calming down, but she was still trying to figure out for herself what was wrong with her this time. Once she'd calmed her stomach down, Mildred tried to get back to her homework. She was halfway finished with the lot of it, cursing her teachers for making her having to learn magic during the summer break since all it did besides help her with her magical education was take more time away from her and her mum.

The sick feeling was going away, but Mildred could still feel it there in her stomach. She was tempted to call one of her friends and ask them what was going on, but she decided against it. They had to put up with her enough as it was at school, she didn't want to take time away from them by calling them during the summer, besides they might not even know what the feeling was. So in the end Mildred decided not to bother with calling anyone.

The Chinese witch had had a wide grin on her face for so long her face was beginning to ache, but it was hard for her to just relax her facial muscles because the first part of her plan had worked. All in all the resurrection ritual had worked, and the mummy was safely ensconced inside the small room she'd prepared for it.

For now she could afford to relax in the small house she'd rented - it was a fairly comfortable place to live in, and it was easy to keep clean, and best of all it was isolated from other houses so then they wouldn't see the mummy - and think about her plans. She knew she would need to be careful - the Great Wizard of this country would have people watching for rituals like the one she had just performed, and she knew if he came here personally to investigate, he would be escorted by a team of experts in the darker magical arts, and she didn't want that. The mummy would be virtually useless as well since he'd lost the ability to wield magic, which was a pity, the Chinese witch mused to herself, reminding herself that the mummy she'd just resurrected had once been a powerful sorcerer before he was cursed.

Oh well, there was no use crying over spilt milk. After making for herself a large mug of tea, once again wishing for the teas produced in her home country though these would suffice for the time being, the witch sat down and inhaled and exhaled slowly and gently. All in all she was pleased with how her plans had progressed, and she hoped that they would continue to go as smoothly as they had previously. But, the woman sighed to herself, even the best laid plans went wrong, but she would need to keep a watch out for any potential elements that would disrupt her plans before she took the mummy back with her to China.

The Great Wizard's arrival and interference was a possibility, but as long as the ritual was only a blip to the British community, she was hopeful he wouldn't arrive. There were dozens of Great Wizards around the world, each one of them tasked with protecting their countries and by representing their people to the rest of the world. If the Great Wizard of China found out she was here, she would be in trouble, but the old fool had no idea she was here, so she was free to do what she wanted.

* * *

Please review.


	7. Chapter 7 Why does everything happen?

Disclaimer - I don't own the Worst Witch. But I do own this story.

Please leave feedback.

Why does everything happen to me?

The Chinese witch flinched as another sharp pain shot through her chest as she hunched over the scroll she'd used to resurrect the mummy, gasping with agony. She could not move. It felt like cramp, but she knew it wasn't since the pain came from what was left of her magic. She had not realised during her studies of necromancy that she would feel any pain, but since the records of her nation didn't go into much detail despite all the texts, articles, books and scrolls and wall hieroglyphs had either been lost, destroyed, or just simply buried and awaited rediscovery, and those that wished to study necromantic theory needed to receive special permission anyway, there wasn't a lot of literature published on the subject.

She had known when she had decided to sacrifice some of her magic to resurrect the mummy there would be consequences, but she hadn't expected this. At first she hadn't felt anything other than slight fatigue, but she had just assumed it was magical exhaustion. The witch understood that, knew that type of exhaustion came when a witch cast a particularly draining piece of magic. But the witch had tried to heat some water to make some tea, and then she had felt a truly sharp pain in her chest. She'd tried to cast another spell to diagnose the problem, but the pains had grown worse, after that the pains had not let up. It had taken her a few more spells to realise the pain was caused by her magic, and she realised that somehow because of the ritual her magic was badly damaged.

Another worrying sign of her problems was the mummy itself.

When she had resurrected the creature, it had been a slow, lumbering brute of clinking and clanking terracotta. Not anymore. Now it was faster and more responsive to her commands rather than hesitant like it wanted clearer instructions on how to accomplish its tasks. It still clinked and clanked with the movements of its terracotta outer shell, but now it was more human in its responses than a slowly brainless zombie under a terracotta casing. She was starting to wonder if the ritual had ripped open her magic and was feeding all of her magical power to the mummy to complete the resurrection, but she knew from her studies there was no chance the creature's soul would be returned. Necromancy didn't work that way. You couldn't bring someone or something back from the dead without creating a link between the soul and the living world and the netherworld, and as far as she knew the mummy didn't have a vessel like that.

It had only been a day and a night since the resurrection and the witch was desperately trying to find some way to shift the ritual away from her life to another, but her studies were delayed because of the agony she was experiencing. The pain from her magic and in her body was making her hands shake and her eyes water, and she had a headache that made it difficult for the Chinese witch to concentrate on the scroll. She was desperate to find a way to transfer the life energy to another person, otherwise she would lose all of her magic, and she had no idea what would happen to her; it was one thing to willingly transfer all of your magical power to another, that was quick and painless, but if her magic had been ripped from her, piece by piece, then she didn't know what the effects were or what would happen to her.

She could die, and no one but her brother would know the reason.

The Chinese witch was also tempted to brew a potion to stabilise the worst of the damage, but she didn't know what the potion's effects would do for her or if it would do more harm than good, and then she found a passage in the scroll. "Extra care must be taken in preparation for the ritual," she read out aloud, "the resurrector must prepare a small quantity of his blood or magic for the resurrection, otherwise the ritual will continue to drain the magic from the resurrector."

The witch swallowed her temper. She had not read this part, and she was kicking herself for not bothering to see if there would be consequences for her actions, but she kept reading. "It is possible to find a coven of witches and bind them to replace the magic originally donated for the resurrection, while taking their blood to create a conduit to fuel the connection the dead need to rise, but only by repeating the ritual. The amount of blood removed from the coven will determine the strength of the ritual for the various members. Extra care must be taken when repeating the ritual, as it could also drain the original instigator. This can also work with ordinary people, and the amount of blood used will determine how quickly they lose their lives."

The Chinese witch smiled, ignoring the pain in her chest. She might have made a stupid mistake in not bothering to properly check the scroll properly to determine the right way to prepare the ritual, but she was pleased the scroll had offered a loophole out of her problem, and she thought for a moment that some people who'd used this ritual in the past had made the same mistake as her, but she quickly pushed that out of her mind - it wasn't relevant. But there was a small problem - the loophole had been expressly written to indicate that while it wasn't a necessity it was ideal for witches or wizards to be used for the ritual.

The witch could look for a few witches or wizards, but decided it wasn't a good idea - she wasn't stupid. If she had the time and the patience, she could probably attack and overpower them before they could cause serious damage, but she doubted she could take on a thirteen year old witch, never mind an older, more experienced witch in her state.

No, ordinary people would have to do. When they were drained, maybe she would decide to use witches and wizards. She would need to work quietly and not leave any suspicious signs for anyone to find, because if another witch found out then her hopes and dreams for power would be for nothing.

Then she winced again, feeling as if her ribcage was being stepped on by an elephant.

This had better work, otherwise she wouldn't live to see her plans come into being.

* * *

As Mildred Hubble walked through down the streets lined with streetlamps and surrounded by trees, she had the feeling she was being followed, but when she turned around she couldn't see anyone. When she was reassured no one was behind her, she let her mind wonder. The feeling of uneasiness hadn't gone away, something that had upset Mildred since she had needed to hide her feelings from her mother. The good news was the pair of them would leave the area, and just drive around to find something meaningful and fun to do. When they returned, however, Mildred would still feel nauseous. There was something really wrong about this place, and it was definitely something that made her magic react badly, but she didn't know what it was because she couldn't describe her feeling.

That was the reason Mildred had left the small place she and her mother were renting to have a simple walk around and just get some of that lovely night air. It was a beautiful night, the stars were out and it was a crescent moon (Mildred was starting to guess werewolves and vampires were real, and she had no intention of being caught on a full moon by a hungry werewolf), and she was enjoying herself as best she could, but her mind was still trying to work out what was causing her such unease. It was hard not to be uneasy when her stomach had been queasy for some time.

This was one of the problems she had with being out on her own without someone older like Miss Bat or Miss Drill to give her a hint of a tip about what the cause could be, and she was sure Maud and Enid would have some ideas about what the problem could be as well. Not for the first time, Mildred wished she had been raised with magic ringing in her ears, if she had then perhaps Ethel and Miss Hardbroom would probably not have given her such a rotten time during the last year.

Thinking about the upcoming year, and hoping and praying that her self appointed schoolyard nemesis didn't give her any more problems and that Miss Hardbroom would be more lenient towards her, had Mildred even more determined to do better than she had before. She had noticed that HB had seemed more kinder towards her after that competition with Miss Pentangle, but that was probably because she had helped the two old friends reunite, but the woman had still been critical towards her, though HB had been nice enough to award her points after the term had finished. Whether their relationship would become brighter, Mildred didn't know.

Mildred tried to look on the bright side - even if she didn't manage to find out what was causing her so much discomfort, she and her mother would be leaving in a few days and heading for North Yorkshire before heading back home. She wondered what Maud and Enid were doing, but decided she would find out when she returned to Cackles Academy. She was hoping the water dragon's knowledge of magic that he'd passed onto her would make a difference; she was already making a few spells of her own, learning as she went, and she hoped that her little experiments shortened the gap between her and Ethel Hallow when it came to magical knowledge.

The sound of screaming and smashing glass caught Mildred's attention, and the heroine in her instantly had her running towards the source, ignoring her mother's residual concerns and worries that she was more than happy to risk her life. When Mildred came to the house that was being smashed up, she stopped in horror, her brain stalled as it tried to translate the sight her eyes were seeing.

She was just outside a house with an entire wall missing, like a very small wrecking ball had just demolished it. But while that was bad enough, Mildred wasn't expecting the massive figure that stood in the hole, the light from the hole giving it a sinister silhouette. When she got a closer look at the silhouette, Mildred just stopped in disbelief. No way.

It was mummy, a Chinese mummy like the ones she'd seen at a museum once and in pictures. It was a massive figure, encased in a shell that depicted a figure in Ancient Chinese battle armour. She couldn't really see the casing that well because the light from the hole was behind it, casting its front in shadow, but she could see the two people struggling in its grip, screaming to be let down. Mildred watched as they kicked out at the mummy's armoured sides, and wondered if they knew they might be wasting their time, and she shifted on her feet. Unfortunately, she rustled a nearby bush she hadn't seen. Typical.

The rustling was enough to catch the attention of the mummy and it jerked upwards, giving Mildred a better look at it. She could see the dirty, worn and dusty terracotta, pockmarked by god knew how many centuries it had been buried, but she didn't have time to get a better look when the mummy lurched towards her, its armour casing sounding like a rusting gate whose hinges were on the verge of shearing off.

The two people the mummy was holding in its arms, a man and a woman in their 20s or 30s, she couldn't be sure, saw her and they panicked. "Get out of here, kid! Run, Run!" The man shouted.

Mildred shifted her stance, preparing to do just that, but she was still shocked that she was seeing a walking mummy that was alive even though it was supposed to be lying six feet or so under that she couldn't move. But two things happened that made Mildred snap out of it, the first thing was the mummy lurching towards her, but the creature stumbled over something on the ground, and it lost its grip over the woman, and she managed to get out of its grasp. She tried to run away, but the mummy recovered quickly and reacted just as fast. It grabbed the screaming woman, and Mildred would never work out later when she looked back on the moment later on whether it was deliberate or not, but either way the mummy grabbed the struggling woman, and she struggled. Mildred couldn't see clearly, but then the mummy shook its hand and there was a sickening crack and the woman went still.

Mildred gasped in horror.

The mummy had just broken the woman's neck.

Mildred had never seen someone die, never mind killed, and now she had just watched a woman be murdered by a resurrected monster. The man screamed as he tried to get out of the mummy's grip, but the creature wasn't going to let him go. It didn't seem to care that the man it was carrying in its arms was wriggling like a worm, it was trying to get to Mildred.

The man glared at her when he realised his efforts to escape were not working, and he realised that he might not escape but this kid who had frozen might. "What did I tell you, kid? Run!"

The mummy lurched closer, and Mildred's brain snapped back along with a horrifying realisation - if she didn't escape now, the mummy would catch her. But she also realised that even if she ran away now, the mummy would still be close enough to reach her. Backing up to put some space between her and the creature, which she could see close up now, close enough to see the massive cracks on its chest, she was dimly reminded of the time she backed away from Agatha Cackle and Miss Gullet.

"Why does everything happen to me?" she whispered.

She hadn't expected to find herself trapped and backing away from someone or something else, as the case may be, so quickly, but she knew a way around this one. "By root, branch and tree, let me flee!" she whispered, briefly registering the flare of magic that hit the mummy head on, but she didn't have time to wait and see if the clumsiness curse worked or not.

She turned to run and she had managed to move quite fast, thankful she was small and young enough to put some distance between her and mummy, and then she heard a cry from the unfortunate man and a heavy clang that sounded as though the mummy had collapsed. She wasn't going to turn back to see, she wasn't that suicidally stupid.

Unfortunately, there was another surprise waiting for her. One she neither wanted or needed. She hadn't gone too far from the mummy when she met someone else.

Mildred cried out in shock when she felt arms snake around her, and she struggled but the person spoke harshly. "Mildred, its me!"

Mildred went very still, and she looked up and saw who it was that grabbed her. "Mum?"

* * *

The Chinese witch was cursing angrily as she hobbled around - she had managed to find a useable stick that passed of for a cane to help her move, since her legs were so stiff it took a lot of effort and deliberate slowness to bent a knee or even twitch a toe - as she prepared the ritual for the second time. She was furious - it was bad enough the stupid mummy had killed the second person from that house, setting the ritual back - the pain she was suffering was growing more and more intense as the hours rolled by, and the witch had no idea how long she could hold out before she either collapsed from the damage the ritual she had stupidly not bothered to read through properly, or more disasters occurred which allowed the mummy to drain more magic out of her body, and she simply died because she couldn't cope anymore. But what really surprised and annoyed and elated her in equal measure was the presence of a witch in the area. Sure, the witch was young and probably inexperienced, but that made no difference.

She glared down at the man the mummy had just brought back to the house. He was unconscious thanks to the potion she'd poured down his throat, but getting him to swallow it without her use of magic was difficult, which was why she had brewed a potion that would put someone into a near eternal sleep with their metabolism and other bodily functions slowed down to a point where some outside observer would think they were dead; it was a spell that magic had been using for centuries, and had even found its way into ordinary myths and legends like the Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, and it was still useful today.

Only for this man and others like him there would be no respite. No means of escaping the effects of the potion.

The Chinese witch had hoped to conduct the next part of the ritual since the mummy should have brought back two people, but it had brought back one instead and since she had been near the house to observe and to see her weapon at work, she had been surprised by something she could not have foreseen. But the primary reason she had gone was to judge the mummy, to make absolutely sure that if something happened, it wouldn't affect her magic in anyway.

And then things had gone wrong.

A young girl, no older than eleven or twelve years of age, had stumbled across the house and had been the reason the second person, an insignificant woman, had managed to wriggle out of the mummy's grasp and tried to escape. She had tried to stop the mummy from going too far, but her control was too weak despite the wretched creature knowing by instinct she was the one who'd brought it back from the dead, so she had watched hopelessly as the mummy snapped the woman's neck.

After seeing his wife/girlfriend, whatever, by killed by the mummy, the man tried to warn the little girl to escape, but by then the witch's control over the mummy had become strong again - it was curious and worrying for her that the control over the mummy seemed to weaken once or twice, but she had made the best of it by forcing the mummy to chase after the girl, deciding that she would have a double sacrifice for the ritual. She didn't care if she was thinking about killing a defenceless child.

But she wasn't entirely defenceless, and much to the witch's shock the girl had used a directed spell against the mummy, causing it to trip over and collapse to the ground, but fortunately it managed to catch itself just in time to stop the only prisoner it had left from escaping though it was a near thing. The presence of a witch, no matter how young was both miraculous and yet disastrous to the Chinese witch. It was miraculous because the sheer power and energy of a witch or wizard was greater than that of an ordinary person, so that meant she could continue the ritual and make it work better than earlier, and she would hopefully recover from the drain on her own magic. All she would need to do was substitute her magic for another witch. The idea she would be practically sentencing an innocent child to certain death didn't disturb or upset her. The girl would deserve it after disturbing her and interfering with her plans.

It was disastrous because she was in no fit state to do anything to her, and on top of that she felt too weak to fight a mouse, never mind a young witch. The Chinese woman had no idea what the girl was capable of, how good she was, and she didn't feel that she was capable of fighting anything or anyone in her current state. It didn't help that the girl knew about the mummy, and she had even witnessed the creature murdering that woman.

Ah, that woman and the man, the Chinese witch mused to herself. It had taken a lot of concentration to pick them, and they were perfect for her efforts since their home was virtually isolated from the rest of the locals, and even if someone had heard the screams they'd be too far away to do any good.

It was probably blind luck the girl witch had even stumbled across the whole mess in the first place.

The Chinese witch looked at the mummy, and decided that together they would resume their hunt, and hopefully gather another person for the ritual - she might get the girl, then again she might not, but there was always a hope. She would have to keep a look out for the girl, and then make a good plan to take care of her.

* * *

"Mum, what're you doing out here-?" Mildred asked Julie, knowing from the look on her mother's face that this did not bode well. Julie's easy going and tolerant manner was long gone. She was angry now, and Mildred had a terrible idea in mind why that was.

"I could ask you the same question," Julie snapped, looking both hurt, worried and angry at the same time before she spoke again, this time doing a cruel but accurate impersonation of her daughter that took Mildred by surprise since it wasn't like her mother to be nasty, "Oh, I'm just going out now, mum, just for a quick walk."

Mildred looked into her mothers eyes, feeling her own eyes well up with tears. "You followed me, didn't you?" she whispered, unable to hide the hurt at the realisation her mother didn't trust her, then she remembered the feeling she had had before she'd met the mummy, that feeling of being watched and followed. It was her mother. She hadn't imagined it.

"Mildred, you've been acting weird for the last two days. I was worried about you, and yeah, I did follow you. I wanted to make sure you were okay and to make sure you were alright, and to see if there was anything I could do to help. But then I saw you face off against that mummy thing, how could you do something so rash and thoughtless?" Julie grasped her daughter's shoulders so tightly Mildred winced.

"It's a compulsion, you know that I can't resist helping people who need it, and this was before I went to school with Maud and Enid. I didn't know there was going to be a mummy," Mildred argued back; probably not the best response, but she couldn't exactly think of a better way to argue her point. "I thought this was just going to be an ordinary walk at night, that was it. I wasn't expecting to meet a mummy, or witness a murder. I didn't expect to see a kidnapping, either."

"I saw you use a spell to trip the mummy up," Julie said in a more measured tone, letting go much to Mildred's silent relief, but she was a long way off her usual manner. "What was that?"

"A clumsiness curse," Mildred replied, not bothering to tell her mother she'd used the same spell against Agatha Cackle.

"Where did that mummy come from, Mildred?"

Mildred sighed. "I don't know," she answered honestly, "but I think it's the reason I've been acting weird as you put it, I felt something odd around here. Before you ask, I didn't know how to tell you; I know your not exactly easy about magic, and I didn't want to make it worse."

Julie sagged and closed her eyes. Mildred knew she'd aimed a low blow there, but she could not stop it. She herself had concerns about the relationship she had with her mother, and she didn't want things to get any worse than they were already. They didn't deserve their relationship being ruined because Mildred was a witch and Julie wasn't. It was unfair, and it was bigoted of Julie to think anything bad about her daughter.

Mildred went on, hoping to keep her habit of babbling down to a minimum; it would not do any good for either of them. "I know you're not happy I'm away from home for months on end," she said softly, "I know you're not a fan of some of my teachers, and I have issues with some of them myself, but I had hoped to spend the holiday with you - I didn't know I'd meet a water dragon and a mummy."

Julie sighed and she wrapped her daughter in her arms. "Tell me everything about that mummy, Mildred," she instructed. "How does it make you feel uneasy?"

"I don't know, I'm not sure how I can describe it. Two days ago, I felt I was going to be sick. I didn't understand what it was or what was happening, I just knew something was very wrong. I think that's when the mummy appeared."

Julie shrugged. "I don't understand why that would be, but maybe your magic is allergic to what brought the mummy back to life," she suggested, her tone clearly saying she didn't know if she was right or wrong, and not really trying to be sorry about it, either.

But Mildred took it like a lifeline. "Do you think that's possible, my magic can get allergic to other kinds of magic?"

"I don't know, I'm not a witch am I?" Julie responded.

Mildred blushed.

"Shall we get back?" Julie suggested, deciding she was tired of this discussion and just wanted to get to bed.

"Yeah, please," Mildred jumped at the chance to get back.

But as they walked, Julie decided to ask a few more questions. "Mildred, that mummy, you said it appeared. Where do you think it came from?"

"I don't know," Mildred replied. "I wasn't expecting a mummy after the water dragon, but I think someone's woken it up."

"With magic?"

"I can't think of anything else."

"Mildred, please don't get involved-"

Mildred stopped and reached out to grasp her mother's wrist. She could barely see Julie's face in the lighting and with the tree canopies overhead, but she could see enough. "Mum, I don't want to get involved, but something tells me it's too late," she said.


	8. Chapter 8 Days in Between

Disclaimer - I don't own the Worst Witch.

Days in-between.

The next day Julie decided to try to forget the mummy by taking her daughter out for the day, and Mildred did her best to enjoy the funfair as she stood near her mother as they went from one ride to the next - a funfair wasn't exactly the type of place Mildred had expected to bond with her mother more. She was pleased with the opportunity to actually have some fun and in a place much smaller and less complicated than a theme park, and while some of the colours on the exhibits were old and badly needed a repaint, Mildred didn't mind since she felt it gave the place more character. It was better than worrying about the mess with the mummy, and she knew her mother felt the same way. After the mummy had tried to grab her, or kill her, Mildred still wasn't sure which it was, and hopefully she would never have to find out though she guessed it would happen at some point, Julie had gotten them both to the place they were staying in and they'd gone to bed. Mildred had gone to sleep, wondering and dreading the conversation she was sure would come about the mummy.

But Julie hadn't really bothered to speak about the mummy and neither did Mildred - the girl had no idea if it was because her mother was worried about the mummy, or if she had her own worries but didn't know how to speak about them. Mildred had no idea if she herself should speak about the mummy or not, but she wasn't going to break the peace. Her mother had been truly upset about her encounter with the mummy in the first place, witnessing the murder of that woman was bad enough, but having to use her magic to fight back had truly hit home for her mother how dangerous her life had become. Personally, Mildred was hoping for a nice, safe education at Cackles. It wasn't her fault things happened, they were attracted to her for some reason she didn't understand, maybe in part because of her non-magical heritage and her lack of understanding of how things worked, but since no-one really bothered to take the time to teach her, it wasn't a surprise things happened.

Mildred had been hoping for the relationship she had with mother to be returned to the way it had been before Maud crashed onto her balcony, but the mummy and the water dragon had put paid to that plan, now they seemed to have returned to square one. Now she had no idea what was going to happen next.

The young witch tried to put a smile on her face and just go along with her mother's plan to put the encounter with the mummy out of her mind, but she didn't think it was going to be that simple. Nothing ever really was simple. Mildred had come to understand that a long time ago.

Later on Julie Hubble watched as her daughter screamed in laughter as they crashed their dodgem cars into each other, and she laughed in turn, even as she shifted in the uncomfortable and cramped seat, but since the cars weren't built to house someone of her height and build, it wasn't a surprise she was having problems with her backside. So far the day had gone more or less the way she had hoped - no mention of mummies, water dragons, fairies, or magic.

But Julie knew the subject was just there, lurking beneath the surface. They both did. The only problem was how would they broach the subject - Mildred was worried about talking about it, and Julie was nervous her daughter would see the talk as permission to go after the mummy.

She had noticed Mildred's uncertain looks in her direction, and knew her daughter well enough to know she was worried about the mummy. Julie was frightened as well, and she knew without a doubt that her daughter was positive the problem was not going to go away - Julie wasn't stupid, she knew it wasn't going to go away either, and was slightly insulted that her daughter believed that she herself was going to ignore it. Julie had no intention of ignoring the mummy problem, despite what Mildred might think.

Despite having a smile on her face, Julie wanted nothing more than to address the ever growing rift between her and Mildred. Her daughter was the only family she had, the only child she would ever have, and she didn't want to lose her as she worried she had.

It was when they were back in the car and were heading to find something to eat, that Julie decided to speak. "Mildred, whats happened between us?" she asked.

Mildred looked at her, knowing what she was asking, and she definitely didn't like the sound of it or how this conversation was going. "Don't say that, I know things haven't been the same since I started attending Cackles."

"So what do you think the problem is?"

Mildred held back the urge to sigh. "I think…Cackle's being a boarding school is not a help," she began, and Julie nodded; when she'd heard from Miss Cackle the school was a boarding school, her heart had stopped. One of the beautiful things about a day school was you saw your child in the morning and then later in the afternoon and evening, but with a boarding school you would only see them once in a while, receiving letters, or in the case of Mildred at Cackles she would receive mirror calls - those calls were like a lifeline to Julie, who only had one thing in her life, and that was Mildred, her daughter.

The last year…broomstick crashes, turned into a frog, getting into fights with other girls, being watched over like a mouse in the sights of a very hungry predatory bird in the form of Miss Hardbroom (actually, the woman had won some grudging respect after sending Mildred home for her safety when the deranged Agatha Cackle took the place over, and Mildred was the one to get rid of her twice before, and giving Mildred the benefit of the doubt after a year of, well being inflexible, during the end of year exams), being humiliated because of her heritage in front of the Great Wizard, whoever he was.

It wasn't exactly impressive, but Julie knew that her daughter was still finding her way in the magical world, how else was she supposed to go if she didn't get things wrong? It really upset and pissed Julie off that people were criticising and hounding her child for being not really magical for their taste, but Mildred had improved and learnt a great deal since the year started.

"I wish that we, I mean the other students, would attend the school during the days and come home at night, that way it would be like a normal school, and then you and me would have time to ourselves, and I'd tell you how my day had gone," Mildred went on.

Julie agreed with her, but she knew it wasn't going to happen. Julie knew the difference between dreams and reality, and Cackle's academy changing into a day school a year after Mildred had begun attending was not going to be on the cards. "I think we should face facts, luv," Julie sighed, "its the fact you're away for months on end that's the problem, and then there's the fact you can do magic, and I can't. You know," she chuckled slightly, "when I met Enid and Maud's parents, they were so accepting of me; Enid's dad made me laugh."

Mildred chuckled herself, remembering for herself the glamorous Nightshades and how insane they were. In their case, insanity was just another word for fun. Enid had certainly inherited their genes, though she hadn't needed to take it so far with her self destructive habits, resulting in her being kicked out of school 17 times. "I know," she replied.

Julie smiled. "Is it true Enid got kicked out of school 17 times?" she asked, surprising Mildred because she'd been thinking about that herself only a second before. It was so eerie Mildred wondered if her mother had seen her thoughts through a window built into her forehead, and read her thoughts from there.

"Yeah, even I was surprised she'd gotten through that many in such a short time," Mildred replied with a laugh, it wasn't that difficult .

Julie shook her head, wondering what Enid could have done to get kicked out so many times, but it said something about her character - how mischievous she was in contrast to how seriously Maud took things. In some areas Maud was the perfect student, she was studious, she kept her head down, but even she wasn't perfect. Julie had found herself adoring the two other girls, and she was thankful they were in Mildred's life.

Unfortunately the good mood evaporated quickly when Julie broached the subject she'd been dreading about for hours. "Mildred, promise me your not planning on going after this mummy?"

Mildred didn't like the way her mother was pleading to the point of begging on her knees, her hands outstretched like she was making a prayer even if she was driving the car. But what upset her the most was the fact her mother believed she was reckless enough to put her life in jeopardy and go after the mummy, and Mildred realised that her decision to travel to the cottage Agatha Cackle had been locked away in for a year had caused this, and she cursed herself for telling her mother about it.

But Julie had not reckoned on something important. "Mum, I saw that mummy snap someones' neck. That was the first time I have ever seen a murder, and I know that the mummy was more than capable of killing me. I don't know what Agatha planned to do in the long run, but she was obsessive - I more or less know where I stand with her. I don't plan on going after this mummy."

"I hope you don't," Julie's voice made Mildred shiver - it wasn't often her mother used that tone with her, that angry, whip-like voice that told her that her mother meant business.

* * *

As she read the scroll for what must have seemed like the millionth time and drinking tea that reminded her of water left in a mop bucket, the Chinese witch was indecisive about what she should do next. While she had one person to take the strain off her and what was left of her magic, the Chinese witch wasn't sure if she should conduct the ritual now or just wait until she found that young witch instead. There were advantages to using another witch, a new source of magic being one of them, that would go a long way in healing the damage the ritual had caused. But the young witch was somewhere nearby, and while she had dispatched a few bats and a couple of ravens to locate her so, then she didn't have to herself and run the risk of wearing herself out, the Chinese witch had no idea for sure if she could last that long by waiting.

The pains caused by using magic after the ritual she was beginning to see had been ill-advised because she hadn't done her research properly were getting worse, and the only cure she knew or could think of to stop it was by recreating the ritual again with different people, but she only had one person. The Chinese witch had been at this crossroads before when she'd arranged for the mummy to be delivered to England, and she had tried to work out which to use - magical or non-magical life energy to sacrifice to resurrect the mummy.

That was how necromancy worked, to bring the dead back to life you needed to give something in return, and she had made the mistake of giving too much of her magic away because she hadn't bothered to learn how the ritual really worked, but now she did and she was furious with herself for not trying to perform it properly.

She had one victim who would do very nicely, the man who was kidnapped the night before, and the woman he'd been with would have been sufficient to power the ritual and relax the grip the mummy had on her magic.

The mummy was getting stronger. Every time it moved, it seemed to be becoming more human, if you could call a walking dead person without a proper soul human, but since the idiot hadn't bothered housing his soul with something simple like a ring or a bracelet before he was executed there was no way he could receive a true resurrection with his soul intact, not that the Chinese witch was bothered by that. She didn't want a slave who could think for itself.

But she needed to have all her magic back because her plans couldn't work if she was dead. There was one good thing; as far as she knew, if she died then the mummy would die since she was the only person to sacrifice something to reanimate it.

Unfortunately, her plans couldn't work if she were dead. When the Chinese witch had formed the plan to resurrect the mummy, she had planned to use the unconscious bodies of no more than four ordinary, non-magical people along with some of her blood to create a conduit for her magic to give the mummy a bit more energy since the creature had been a sorcerer before he was executed and buried for his crimes.

The witch had gotten it all worked out - she would spend a bit of time in this part of the country, waiting for the mummy to arrive and while she was here she would begin looking for people she could use. But when the mummy was lost in that bog there was no way that would work, so she had no choice but to sacrifice a part of herself for the mummy. She had no problem with that, she had planned to sacrifice a part of herself anyway, but she had wanted others to be sacrificed as well to increase the power in the mummy. How would she manage sacrificing people near a bog?

But the Chinese witch had not seen the danger in sacrificing her magic until now, and by now it was almost too late. The young witch was her best hope. If only those stupid birds and bats found her, and then it would be child's play for the mummy to go out and collect the girl. The only problem was the Chinese witch couldn't risk using magic, but young girl could, so how would the mummy be able to attack her without problems?

And then the answer came to the witch.

Three days had passed since the night where they'd encountered the mummy, and Mildred was idly drawing a picture, using one of the photos taken over the holiday for a base for the picture. The photo was of the coast, and so far Mildred had been drawing it out for close to two hours now. Scattered around her table were a number of pencils with rubbers and sharpeners with pieces of shaving littered around her as she studied the photo on the laptop. She loved digital technology, particularly how well you could sharpen the image and add details to the drawing when you got down to it.

As she drew the picture, sketching parts of it out carefully, using her eyes to to map out the details and transfer it to the picture - this was good experience for an artist, and most of all it took her mind off the mummy.

* * *

Mildred had no intention of going out at night, not after her mother had used that….tone with her earlier. But then Mildred didn't really want to encounter the mummy again - the way the creature murdered that woman had scared her more than Agatha Cackle or that hunter ever could, though the hunter was a close second; Mildred knew the man had planned to hurt or kill her, and that was scary enough, but to actually witness a murder….

As she drew the picture, she wondered what was going to happen next; unlike her mother, Mildred knew for a certainty the mummy was not going to go away, but as the days went by and she had time to think she realised something critical as she was drawing her picture.

The mummy had been buried for thousands of years, check. The state of its casing, the dents, the erosion of the terracotta, the cracks proved that, the mummy hadn't travelled through time (she would not think about that mess with the mists of time), check. This was Britain, the mummy came from China, so how had it arrived in the country? By boat? Check. So, someone must have brought it here and then resurrected the mummy, and that meant magic because Mildred couldn't think of anything else that could bring a terracotta covered Chinese mummy back to life. That meant that there was another witch or wizard in the area.

Another witch or wizard. She'd already guessed another witch or wizard had brought the creature back to life, but she didn't know what they planned to do next.

Mildred sighed and she paused her work for a second, finger poised over the paper, and she thought about it. Another witch or wizard had resurrected the mummy, and they obviously must know what the mummy was doing. If they didn't, Mildred would be very surprised, but she had no intention of going out there looking for trouble - she had done that twice already, first with Agatha Cackle and then with that hunter in Loch Ness, and besides, if she was right, whoever it was knew she was here already, so all Mildred had to do was wait, but it didn't make things easier. She hadn't told her mother about what she'd just realised, and she wasn't sure if her mother would try to drag her away.

Mildred wasn't sure if it would do much good because she didn't know what the other was doing, and that worried Mildred, but she had several important questions on her mind.

Why would another witch or wizard resurrect a mummy? What was the point? It didn't make sense. What did make sense was they weren't friendly if they kidnapped and murdered people, using the mummy to do the dirty work.

"You okay, luv? You look like you're deep in thought," Julie said, but then something occurred to her. "You're thinking about the mummy, aren't you?"

"Hard not to," Mildred replied as she focused again on the drawing, and began carefully adding details to one part of the drawing which would go on until she'd finished, and then she'd begin shading. "I'm not going after the mummy, and besides the entire town knows there was a murder, but they think the husband did it."

It hadn't taken the town long to discover the body of the woman who was the wife of a very well known builder. The police and some reporters had visited the site and discovered the body, and they had quickly worked out the husband was missing. The general theory was the builder had just murdered his wife, but they had to take into account several things didn't make sense. What was the hole in the wall? Who or what had caused it? The hole was large, but not large enough to be caused by machinery, and the wall was solid stone so how could anyone smash it down with sledgehammers, but what would be the point when the murderer lived in the house?

But what didn't make sense was the builder was local, and he only had a local knowledge and a bit beyond of roads and towns beyond the town he lived in. He didn't have an enormous construction company, and he didn't care to have one either according to some of his employees who also told the police the man wasn't the type of person to be a murderer in the first place. Unfortunately, the police didn't have any evidence that ruled him out since they couldn't find him to ask his version of the story.

Julie didn't feel comfortable with the knowledge she and her daughter were the only people in the town that knew the truth, and every time she walked out with Mildred into the town they were staying in briefly before moving on again for the next part of their holiday before Mildred was due back at Cackle's she was afraid she would open her mouth, and tell people she had witnessed the whole thing. It was only the knowledge that magic was involved that Julie didn't talk, and besides who'd believe her about the mummy? Julie believed in telling the truth, but even she knew not to be so stupid and talk about it, she would be placed in an asylum if she said a word. But if she was uncomfortable then god knew what Mildred was thinking.

"How do you feel about that, knowing what really happened and what's been said?" Julie asked her daughter. It was bad enough the pair of them witnessed the murder of the builder, it was so cruel and senseless, and it was bad enough Mildred had known something was odd in the first place, but to be a witness of a murder and a kidnap….. It was terrifying, mummies coming to life had no place in the real world, only in books, TV and movies.

Mildred looked up again, pausing over her drawing. "I hate knowing what's happened, mum, but who'd believe us? Apart from me, there's only one other witch or wizard out there, and they resurrected the mummy. That's who's responsible for tearing that builder's life apart."

Julie shook her head. "Why would this witch or wizard kidnap a builder?"

"Didn't you notice that the mummy had a hold on both the wife and husband? It was taking both of them away, but I don't know," Mildred sighed, putting her pencil back on the sketchpad. She was rapidly losing interest in her drawing, though she knew she'd quickly get back to doing it later.

"Why would it kidnap one and kill the other?"

"I think it was an accident the wife was killed, but why the witch or wizard wanted the builder I don't know, but when I was close to the mummy," Mildred paused as she watched her mother shudder, "and I can tell you, it didn't seem human, I mean it couldn't talk or act like a human, even if moved like one. I think the witch or wizard wanted the couple for something. The builder screamed at me to get away remember, but the mummy didn't say anything to me like they do in the movies."

"I remember," Julie pointed out in a very displeased tone, not liking the fact her daughter had been so close to death. "It acted like a zombie."

Mildred shuddered. She hated zombies, she had never understood the hype behind them. What was so special about a walking corpse who couldn't speak, paint, ride a bike or do anything smart, and lumbered around all day? Vampires, werewolves….Mildred could cope with them, at least they had some kind of intelligence behind their actions. Zombies, not so much.

"Please don't say that," she pleaded. "You know I hate zombies." Mildred shuddered and scrunched up her face.

"Sorry," Julie smirked, not repentant at all. She was always amused when she discovered Mildred's preferences, especially when her daughter scrunched her face up in that adorable manner of hers. But her smile disappeared when Mildred's expression became grim.

"Anyway, I've just had a nasty thought - what if the mummy wasn't alone that night? What if the witch or wizard was there, watching the whole scene and they saw me?"

"Don't say that," Julie hissed, but as soon as the idea penetrated her mind, it was hard to shake off, because Mildred could very well be right.

The thought that another witch or wizard was there the whole time, and just standing there watching as a resurrected mummy went ahead, preparing to kill a child as easily as the wife of the man who was kidnapped from that house. Already the police were going over the whole mess, and all kinds of stories were being thrown around, but only four people knew the truth - the Hubbles, Julie and Mildred, the unfortunate builder, and the person responsible for bringing the mummy back to life in the first place.

"I don't want to believe it either, but its possible, and it worries me. Don't look at me like that, I didn't expect to wander into the path of a walking mummy from Ancient China," Mildred replied. "Someone brought it here, brought it back to life. Don't you think they saw me?" she added nervously, not liking the thought of being a target to whoever had resurrected the mummy.

Julie looked beadily at her daughter. "Millie, don't you think your time as a witch is throwing you into danger?"

Mildred rolled her eyes as she remembered all the times she'd either blundered into a new crisis or the crisis found her. It wasn't nice lurching from one disaster to another. "Sometimes," she confessed, "but most of the time trouble finds me. It always did, you know that."

Julie sighed and rubbed her temples indicating that she did know that. She shouldn't have tried using Mildred's newfound discovery of magic and being a witch as an excuse for all of the weird things that happened around her. Okay, granted - blowing up a potions lab wasn't funny, but there was something incredibly satisfying as seeing Miss Hardbroom look frustrated.

Before Mildred attended Cackles, she was responsible for a number of misdemeanours simply out of pure clumsiness or enthusiasm. It was typical of children to be enthusiastic, and Mildred was one of those people who was very smart in their own way, but sometimes went too far by trying to be good because most of the things she tried to do ended up becoming a disaster, and it had seeped into her life at Cackles. Granted none of Mildred's accidents in classrooms involved blowing them up, but none of her primary schoolteachers would have been too surprised if they heard that Mildred had blown a classroom up by accident.

She was that type of girl.

Mildred finding out about magic and attending Cackles had proven to be a problem, and Julie had heard about all of the misdemeanours, magnified by a factor of ten because of her daughter still trying to find her feet in a world she had only entered. It was truly unfair that all of her teachers at Cackles seemed to expect her to learn about magic, and reach the level of the other girls overnight. But it wasn't likely to happen. You couldn't learn about a culture, a whole different way of thinking, and learn magic in just a night - you had to experience it all, learn from the mistakes you'd made. Mildred was still learning, and while Mildred might have annoyed some of her teachers, but they quickly came to like her and her sweet disposition. Julie wondered if some of the teachers at Cackles would become more open towards her, but Mildred had been there for a few months already, and she'd already managed to win some of their respect.

Who knew what the future would bring?

But what really worried Julie the most, what concerned her the most, was that her daughter blundered into danger, sometimes aware of it and sometimes unaware of it, and she worried for her daughter. Mildred was a curious girl, and it had gotten her into trouble more than once, so it didn't take much to make Julie fear for her daughter's health. What if she became curious enough to go after the mummy?

The problem was, as Julie was fearing, Mildred was curious about the mummy despite her clear fear of it, but it was fascinating; a form of magic that was capable of bringing the dead back to life even if Mildred felt physically sick because it had a weird effect on her own magic. But what interested her the most was why a Chinese mummy? Why not something like a conventional corpse? Mildred shuddered at the thought - she might think the mummy was bad enough, but the idea of a corpse of someone local made her shudder.

Corpses in the cemeteries had families, living relatives, and the thought of those families seeing those people come back from the dead and kill people was frightening. Was that the other's plan?

Sometimes Mildred wished she could just stay uninvolved. Life would be so much better if that happened.

The next day Mildred was laughing at something her mother had said when they passed a newsagents, pleased she'd gotten out of her mood swing the day before. Too bad it wasn't meant to last, because the girl's laughter died when she caught sight of something until finally she stopped laughing. Julie noticed her daughter's waning interest in the mood pretty quickly. "Millie, what's the matter?" she asked softly, but Mildred still stared fixedly ahead, and Julie followed her gaze, and she lost her cheerful mood.

There was a newspaper stand propped up outside the doorway, and the top story headline read "Police on the trail of killer builder! Police still investigating the crime scene!"

Julie shook her head, and looked at Mildred's face. The girl looked up at her grimly.

Good mood over, the two Hubbles walked away from the town and headed back to their place.

* * *

In her rented property, the Chinese witch was almost paralysed. The pain was only the smallest part of it, no the rest of her body was virtually dead. Her earlier decision to put off using the ritual on the builder, who was already proving to be a problem thanks to the newspaper articles that were flying around, was causing her more pain.

She was beginning to regret her previous decision to wait until she had the witch in her custody once her brother had caught him, but she was unsure what could happen if she conducted the ritual more than once. She was already virtually paralysed, her magic was not working, she was having trouble keeping awake, let alone eat or drink anything. She was saving her energy for when she had the girl in her power.

At first the witch had thought about the morality of using a child to fuel the ritual but she'd decided to just do it - she would think about the moral concerns later.

As she lay on the couch, saving her energy, hearing her breathing; it sounded more like her throat had been rubbed raw with sandpaper, and it worried her just how far she was going to losing her life. She opened a beady eye, and glared angrily at the mummy as it stood like a statue in a corner. It had bled her dry, and there was a good chance she was already dying, and there was little she could do about it.

And all that time, this thing was taking everything else from her, and she had no trouble imagining that when her magic was completely gone, then whatever was next would be greedily consumed by the mummy.

The Chinese witch was even willing to bet as soon as she died, the mummy would go on eating what was left of her energy until her bones were turned to dust. If that happened….. Goodbye Beijing. Goodbye to all of her plans. Her brother was nearby, she knew he was, but she was not sure if he would perform the task she had set him. She had gotten into contact with him the day before, but she was unsure where he was now except that he was in the town.

All he had to do was find the girl, bring her here and then they'd carry out the ritual. She had wanted two people for the ritual before the wretched mummy snapped the builder's wife's neck, and now she would have a witch, a young one, full of energy and magic. It didn't matter to the Chinese witch if the other witch was a young girl despite the moral concerns of using a child of all things for the ritual, she wanted to reverse the effects of the ritual enough to recover enough of her magic.

The Chinese witch was drifting in and out of consciousness when the tell-tale sound of a transportation spell made her open her eyes blearily.

"I should have known," her brother said to her in their home language, "when you'd said in your message it was urgent, I thought something was wrong. But I never realised your plan was this dangerous. Let me guess - you read out the scroll, sacrificed something vital, and now you're paying the price. You were always stubborn."

It took a lot of effort for her to speak. "My magic…it….feels…terrible. I think…I….tore…..it during….the ritual," she wheezed.

If she expected sympathy from her brother, she was going to be in for a disappointment. "You fool," he snarled, stalking angrily around the room, pausing to examine the mummy before returning to stand over her. "You should have read the ritual correctly, if you had you wouldn't have this problem. The mummy has already killed someone ahead of schedule!"

"It…..was…..not…..meant…..to….happen," she pleaded with him, hoping he would find some solution to her paralysis, and she somehow mustered what was left of her strength to speak. "But…..there….is…..a…..way…..around this, that builder, and a girl. Another…..witch….."

"Yes, you've told me about her." The Chinese witch could barely see her brother, he was barely more than a blurred silhouette now, but she could tell he'd folded his arms. "What do you want me to do? I've seen her. Are you are really sure you want to use a child for the ritual?"

The witch was unsurprised by her brother's clear disgust. While he had no problems hurting people who were adults, children were completely different, because none of them had done any harm. Besides, they had both grown up in utter hell, forced to survive while adults and older children made their lives a living hell. "We have no choice, not if we want to fulfil our plans. We knew that some had to die for the greater good," she managed to get out with barely a wheeze, though she started coughing hard, so hard that she feared for her throat.

"The greater good?" The wizard sneered, she could hear it in her voice. "I hate that phrase. Some of the worst things imaginable have been justified by the greater good."

"This…..is…..different, we…..are doing…..this for…ourselves…our dreams of ruling," she whispered, cursing her poor choice of words, but it was so hard to concentrate when she was putting all of her energy into trying to stay awake, and talk to her brother. Unfortunately, she had forgotten how much her brother hated the phrase "the greater good" because many of their teachers who had grown worried about the two siblings leanings and studies into magical arts leading close to necromancy had told them it was for the greater good they stop, that they throw away or burn the dangerous texts into necromancy. But then they would say something like that, something extreme, because they were of the group that claimed necromancy was an evil magical art that needed to be forgotten for the future's greater good.

Both the siblings knew it wasn't as simple as that - many magical studies required the use of necromancy, as did the understanding for soul magic, for ghost studies, things like that, but the teachers either didn't know any of that, or they considered it irrelevant. But necromancy was vital if you wanted to study magic, all the arcane magical arts, and besides there were stories and legends of witchdoctors in Africa and other parts of the world before the Craft truly took a hold of the world's magic that were reputed to be capable of bringing souls back from the brink of death.

That kind of power…..it was staggering, irresistible…It was the power they desired. The siblings needed it after they had both lost their parents at a young age, and they desired power above anything else in the world. That kind of mindset had driven the pair of them into studying all kinds of magical arts, moving from one magical school to another, soaking all they could up and then moving on again.

Necromancy wasn't the only magical art they had studied, but it was the one that suited them because of their inner greed. Yes, they both admitted to themselves that they were greedy, greedy for greater power and control over magic, they wanted it all. Both of them knew their desires had limits, but they didn't care.

The wizard sighed. He knew his sister was right. They had both been planning for years to accomplish their plans, but they had known for the necromantic ritual to work, sacrifices had to be made. He just hadn't expected or planned for an innocent child to be sacrificed. But they had to use her - not only was it because the girl was young and healthy, she wasn't as well trained as an adult witch. "I wish you hadn't been so impatient," he muttered, making sure that his voice was low but angry enough to be heard, "then we wouldn't be in this mess-"

"Don't….blame….me for…..this!" she hissed, and she tried to sit up but it was too much effort for her, and she collapsed back with a whimpering gasp. "I…..had the…..ritual…planned out,…had sacrifices…..ready…..for…..use, but…..those…..stupid fools….crashed, and…..the…..mummy…..was…..lost…..in the bog. Had to…..make….do," she got out through her wheezing. "You found….the girl?"

"I found her. But I will need to think of a way to bring her here without causing a fight," the wizard replied, "unlike you I don't go for the bull in an apothecary approach."

The witch glared at him.

"Don't look at me like that," the wizard replied with a dark chuckle. "We both know how impatient you are. In the meantime, while I think about what to do about the girl, I'll make you a few potions to try to boost your magic-"

"Don't," she gasped, "it might…..not….work. Might….speed up….the drain on…..my powers."

The wizard knew that was a possibility, but unless he knew for sure how bad it was for her magic, a potion was a necessity. He decided to take a chance, and lightly ran his fingers over the prone figure of his sister. She could see what he was doing, felt the magic wash over her, and she whimpered as the tingling went over her body.

Growling a little at his sister's stupidity and impetuous attitude, the wizard rubbed his eyes as he tried to think of a clear way he could heal the damage she'd caused. He picked up the ritual scroll and examined it with a sharper eye than his sister. He wasn't sure if her hope that the introduction of the non-magical builder and the young witch taking his sister's place as the primary source for energy would work since the mummy had drained off so much of it already.

He looked down at his sister thoughtfully, wondering how he could rectify this mess without causing more problems for his sister. Part of him was already beginning to suspect it was too far gone to do any real good anyway, making him suspect that even if the young girl took his sisters place, it would not help his sister. Not for the first time, the wizard cursed his sister for not going to the bog the mummy had fallen in, get the mummy out of the bog, and proceed with the ritual like she had planned originally, that way none of this would even be necessary. The mummy had already killed someone, but his sister said it hadn't meant to happen, but he didn't know what to think. All that went through his mind was just how risky this was becoming, and because of his sister's brashness it was about to get worse.

The Chinese wizard then spent the whole day trailing after the girl and her mother. He was invisible, so they had no idea he was there. He followed them with a smile on his hidden face as they laughed and interacted with each other, but that ended when they spotted the newsstand outside that shop. He read the headlines on the board as well and annoyance swept through his being. How could his sister have been so unbelievably stupid? Anyway, he followed the girl and her mother back to the small house they were renting, and overheard their grim conversation.

It was interesting to say the least. The two of them were so openly worried about the mummy and what it might do to them both simply because they had been there when the builder was killed.

The next day the wizard entered the small house the two were renting while the two were out for the day. He had gathered that the pair of them were doing their best to avoid thinking or worrying about the mummy in the hope it would go away, and contrary to what his ruthless sister would do in his place, he decided to study the two. They were more or less a simple puzzle to solve - the woman was clearly a single mother raising a daughter, and she was non-magical. The Chinese wizard was in two minds about that - he knew that many would frown on the idea of a child with no magical heritage attending a magical school, but he didn't care.

If you had magic, then you deserved a place at a school. What was clear to him was the girl was caught between those that maligned and despised her for her heritage, and her obvious ignorance of magic in general, and those that truly cared for her.

As the Chinese wizard walked through the house, a number of spells making sure he didn't leave any evidence of his presence, though he had made sure his feet were clean anyway, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and leave something behind to tell the two he'd been here, he discovered a great deal about them.

The first was the girl's name. Mildred Hubble. He wasn't entirely sure if that was a typical name in this country, he didn't care either, but he learnt a great deal about her after studying the girls' possessions. She was a good artist, and she had a broomstick that was clearly broken, meaning most of the spells designed to keep it stable were now skewed, but it was still functional. He smiled at the silly Tabby cat - it was typical of countries like Britain and America to favour black cats, deeming them traditional, but to other countries, a cat was a cat. He was pleased the girl Mildred was intelligent enough to see that, but it was still unusual. He stroked the cat lightly as he thought about what he needed to do, all he did know was that if Mildred was to be included in the ritual, he would either have to hit her over the head, curse her, but he would need to murder the mother as well.

The Chinese wizard did not want to do that. He didn't want someone coming to the house, find Julie Hubble's body, and discover she had a daughter…. It was bad enough his sister had fucked up badly with the builder and his wife, the whole town and even a bit beyond was a powder keg of suspicion, and the non-magical police were investigating the death, there didn't need to be another with a child's disappearance making it worse.

It was too early for panic to begin.

He would need to be subtle.

And then something occurred to him - the town was aware of the death of the builders' wife, and the witch and her mother believed the problem had more or less gone away. Maybe it would be a good idea to prove them wrong, sure if it would mean changing the plan he and his idiot sister had set up over the years, and it would certainly attract the attention of the British wizards, but he decided to terrify the two Hubbles, and then he would make his move.


	9. Chapter 9 The Two Siblings

The Two siblings.

Mildred groaned as she woke up, her head spinning like someone had knocked her unconscious by strapping her to a fairground ride and then throwing the strongest sleeping draught into her face. She opened her eyes, but her vision was so blurred and out of focus she had to close them again because when that spinning feeling in her head was made worse.

She tried to remember how she'd gotten into this latest mess, but her short-term memory was a little out of sync, so she tried to remember what had happened over the last year, see if that helped. Mildred remembered her name, her home address, her email address, the names of her friends at school. Yeah, that seemed to work out better than before.

Other memories came back to her, and Mildred began remembering that mess at Selection Day with the Cackles entrance exam, the mess with Agatha Cackle and the trial Miss Cackle had set up as a compromise, the broomstick flying disaster, Tabby, the Switching spell…..Enid Nightshade, Miss Gullet, Mr Rowan-Webb and her in the frog pond after Ethel Hallow had turned her into a frog, the Great Wizard and having to deal with Agatha again, the Spelling Bee competition, the Mists of Time, mistaking a shaken Ada as Agatha and putting herself in danger…..it was all coming back to her.

And so too was the memory of what had happened.

Mildred and her mother had been sitting in their rented cottage, just watching TV and playing a simple game when suddenly they felt drowsy and then nodded off. Remembering that helped Mildred clear her mind, and it didn't take long for whatever had caused her to sleep to wear off. Mildred was still groggy and her head was throbbing, but it wasn't as bad as before, and she soon became aware of her surroundings. By the look of it, she was inside another rented home, it had that basic cosy feel that felt barely inhabited; TV, basic furnishings, bad decor. But it had some improvements done to it, though Mildred didn't think the owners of the property would have approved if they saw the massive figure of the Chinese mummy standing in a corner like a statue that looked like an army had used it for target practice, and in the bad lightning it made a shadowy impression on the room, so it was hard to see the finer details of the mummy but there was something really unsettling about it. Mildred swallowed as she studied the thing, feeling that there was something oppressive about it.

It took a moment for the young witch to look away from the mummy, and she found herself looking at the unconscious form of a man. For a moment Mildred thought he was dead, so she looked at the body with fear - the last thing she wanted was to deal with a corpse. But Mildred saw much to her relief the slow rise and fall of his chest, so he was still alive. She almost wept in relief, but a darker and more cynical thought that even if he woke up from whatever spell was holding him down told her that he might not like the reality of freedom; his wife was dead, he was the prime suspect in her death.

Mildred looked away from the man lying on the couch, guessing that he had been lying there for some time, and then she found herself looking at another body, this time a woman and she was barely alive. Her breathing was rasping and staggered like she had just collapsed from a marathon run that she hadn't stopped doing once and had just collapsed in a sweaty heap.

But Mildred knew this woman hadn't run a marathon. She looked like every atom of her life and energy was being sucked out of her by a giant straw, and when she groaned and turned her head, her rasping breath sending chills down Mildred's back, the girl could see that the woman was Asian.

"Ah, so you are awake, and you've seen my sister?" A man, another Asian with glossy black hair compared to the woman's hair which looked like all the life was being drained out of it.

The man on the other hand, looked healthy and strong, he looked about 30-40 years old, but it was the fact he was brother to the witch on the couch nearby that made Mildred study their facial profiles but there was little to work with from the woman, though Mildred did catch something in the woman's brow, her nose that the man possessed, but after a second she began to realise that she didn't care one iota if these two were related.

"What happened to her?" she asked.

The wizard glanced over at his sister and Mildred could see the myriad of emotions crossing over his face - anger, sadness, love.

"She made the elementary mistake of not bothering to learn more about the ritual, and because of that mistake she is losing her magic," the wizard replied, sending an angry glare at his sister clearly not happy about it.

"Why is she losing her magic? What ritual?" Mildred asked.

The wizard sneered at her for a second before he decided to explain. "The mummy was recently revived by magic. But the problem is for something to happen, like say a crops to be grown you need to plant seeds and then pour water over it to ensure a steady growth. It's one of magics greatest laws for something like necromancy to receive something in return, in this case my sister used her magic, but she didn't prepare herself properly, Mildred Hubble - yes, I know your name, I've been watching you and your mother, don't worry she's safe, but you on the other hand are not safe."

Mildred shivered with fear. "W-why, what are you going to d-do?" she stammered.

The wizard's eyes might have been chips of ice in a face carved from pure stone for all the feeling it showed, but he didn't reply almost as if the reply was beneath Mildred's notice. "You're going to take my sister's place," he answered, "you and your magic will keep the mummy alive so then we can fulfil our plans."

"Plans for what?"

"Plans to be all powerful!" The wizard's voice had risen to a shout before he calmed down, but Mildred had seen enough of his personality to fear him more than ever. She had met mad magicians before, but they were small fry compared to this guy; Agatha came close, but she had never raised the dead before, and used young witches to do the deed. When she had cast that spell to destroy the school, she hadn't given any thought at all to the people still trapped inside like Ethel and Esmerelda Hallow, Miss Drill, Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom, and the Great Wizard.

As Mildred went over in her mind briefly what the wizard and his sister were planning to do with a resurrected mummy, she felt it made a sort of weird sense that for this type of thing something would need to be contributed in order for a mummy to be resurrected. It was like shopping (not a good comparison, but Mildred was rushed off her feet to find a good enough comparison), the shops needed customers to come in, see their stock, choose a few things otherwise the staff wouldn't get paid. The money went towards other things as well of course - rent or lease of the property, electricity, water and food for breaks, stock, but the point was for the business to work so many things had to be put in. It was weird logic, but it made sense.

"But why? Why resurrect a mummy, and let it kill people?" Mildred asked him before he get started with whatever he planned to do to her. If she could play for time she might find a way to get free.

The wizard paused and for a second she thought he was just going to ignore her, but instead he looked out of the window and began to speak.

"My sister and I were part of a wealthy magical family, but our fortune and our parents were lost - my sister and I never found out why or how even, so we had to live in a magical orphanage. We had lost everything we had ever had. We grew up hoping someone would adopt us, but no one ever did. As we grew older and were accepted into magical school, we began to suspect we were being watched - the teachers were very careful when they taught us, and they would always watch us. Whenever we tried to find out what happened to our parents, we would always get into trouble, and the teachers' treatment of us both became harsher. As we grew older, Mildred Hubble, we decided that we would be more powerful than anybody else. But that wasn't enough. We needed a power no one else in our country was willing to teach in order to fight it off. Necromancy was the perfect power for us."

The wizard stopped as if he had said to much, Mildred could see his eyes reflected in the window darting from left to right. "Do you know what necromancy is, Hubble? Many people believe it's just the magical science involved with bringing the dead back to life, but like many other things it is more complex than that.

"Necromancy is considered by many witches and wizard worldwide to be an evil form of magic. In a way it is. Most people would say magic doesn't corrupt anybody. Your Merlin himself said that magic itself wasn't evil, it was what was in the heart that determined whether the witch or wizard was evil. Necromancy is no different in reality, it depends what you do with it. The only problem is many witches and wizards who have dabbled with necromancy have used it to raise armies of the dead."

Mildred raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't sound too different from what you've done," she commented before she winced. She shouldn't have said that.

The wizard sneered at her. "Oh, but it is," he countered, "most of those idiots who experiment with necromancy don't bother to fully explore it. My sister and I have been studying it for years, we want to take it into a new direction."

Mildred could understand the desire to take something and turn it into something else because she had experimented with different art mediums herself to create new pieces of art, but this was different. This man was talking about using the dead to make things better.

"What do you plan to do?" she asked, at a loss to ask anything different.

The wizard shrugged. "Very simply, you're going to be sacrificed so then my sister can have a chance to recover from her reckless mistake."

Glancing at the witch, Mildred could guess that she was looking at a possible future for herself, but looking around for inspiration so she could work out a way to get herself out of this mess, Mildred nodded her head in the direction of the builder, guessing what he was here for but wanted to know for sure. "And him?"

"Much the same thing," the wizard explained, "with him added to the equation, you won't have to take the strain for keeping the mummy alive."

"Why did you bring that thing back to life in the first place? I mean I get what you said about becoming all powerful, but I don't see how bringing a mummy back to life is going to do that."

"The form of magic that's brought the mummy back to life is called necromancy, Miss Hubble," the wizard said - why he was being so informative Mildred had no idea, "every magical culture has had a fascination with death, and like many other magical arts there is no genuine source of which country got it first. In African tribes, witch-doctors used their magic to probe the spirits, in Australia and America, the Aborigines and the Native Americans used their different techniques to spirit walk and raise ghosts, it's probable ancient sorcerers used their powers to learn what witches and wizards in other countries were doing; our people have had communication across countries better than letters, pigeons and other methods that are so crude its amazing you can even speak."

The wizard paused as if he had said too much before he carried on. "In Asia and in Eastern Europe, however, raising the dead was easier because of the uniting of the magical conclaves, and there were dozens of rituals and different thought processes went into learning how to give life to the dead. In the end the easiest and simplest way to give life to the dead was to pass on magic and life to give the body an anchor for the soul to return, although it's not possible to revive the soul of the person unless something was used to tie the soul to the physical form.

"This mummy," the wizard said, walking over to stand in front of the armoured form, "was once a sorcerer, and a powerful warlord as well. He dabbled in necromancy and other magical arts that are considered dangerous, and his followers killed him. For all his power, all of his experience and understanding of necromancy, he didn't bother to bind his soul to the mortal plane. His followers killed him and simply mummified him, leaving him in a tomb that only magical people could find. Do you want to know what he was doing when he was killed, Mildred Hubble? He was actually dabbling in a necromancy experiment that was designed to bring an army of the dead to serve him. His followers according to the story were frightened by the experiment which was why he was killed."

"And you want to carry on with where he left off?" Mildred asked, guessing why the wizard was even bothering to regale her with this story.

The wizard looked down at her, and with how the light highlighted one side of his face Mildred shuddered at how sinister he appeared to look. "Yes, Mildred Hubble. My sister and I had been studying necromancy for a while before we found the story of this mummy. We were intrigued, it represented a level of knowledge we had no idea about. My sister and I decided to resurrect the mummy, but we couldn't do it in our country."

"Why not?"

"Because of the laws," the wizard became sour, "necromancy has a bad reputation in many countries. It's one of those magical skills which has a mixed reputation; there are stories, legends, of sorcerers and wizards who were corrupt, and wanted to raise whole armies or summon spirits to cause harm. Other necromancers used their skills and knowledge to give people the chance to speak to their dearly departed loved ones, but sometimes they used that skill to scare people to death, or they would use spirits of other people to possess enemies and humiliate them."

"What about the mummy, the person it used to be, is he still around?"

"No, the soul is in the underworld, and he didn't try binding his soul to the mortal plane."

From the sounds of it Mildred was unsurprised necromancy had been banned, she could easily imagine how terrible it must be for spirits, people who'd passed on and deserved rest from life, to be used in such a manner. Mildred had never really imagined bringing the dead being brought back to life until she'd watched her first zombie movie, although she'd quickly stopped, disgusted by the idea something could take what were once people and turn them into mindless creatures. She began thinking that movies like that should be condemned and destroyed for simply re-animating the dead when they should remain dead. Finding out there was a branch of magic which actually brought people back to life, it sickened her.

Mildred's mind went over what the wizard had told her just, about spirits being used to possess people, humiliate them….Mildred had been humiliated before, but she had never had someone share her body before, making her possibly do terrible things.

Now she could see what she imagined the wizard was talking about, Mildred had little trouble imagining some of those spirits forcing their victim to murder others, perhaps people that person loved. A scenario unfolded in front of her mind of a jealous wizard who understood necromancy, using his knowledge and powers to humiliate someone he'd considered a friend simply for loving a girl the wizard wanted for himself before waking a spirit up and forcing it to take control of the other's body, and perhaps raping and murdering the woman - no that would make little sense, if the other wizard wanted the woman for himself in the first place - perhaps to scare her away into the arms of the necromancer?

But other ideas for necromancy reared itself up in Mildred's head, fuelled by her imagination which was overactive at times, of sorcerers using the dead to overrun cities, towns, and murdering people who were themselves resurrected in the same way as the soldiers who'd unthinkingly murdered them, reanimated to join the growing army of the undead, slaves to the wizard's will. No wonder necromancy was banned.

But if necromancy was banned in China, and presumably other countries in Asia, that meant the laws in Britain on the subject were either lax or non-existent. Mildred had already gotten a taste of the magical laws of Britain, the rules of the Witches' code, the potential damage the knowledge of the truth of Agatha's birth and how Ada was technically breaking the code. But she had less knowledge of the other laws, so she didn't know what was banned and what wasn't in this country.

"So you decided to practice necromancy in a country that will probably ban it if your plan works?" Mildred guessed.

"Our plans will work. No witch aside from you knows we're here, nor do wizards. We used the mind numbingly slow and boring methods of travel non-magical people travel. Not even the Great Wizard knows we're here."

Mildred shook her head. "But what do you hope to gain? Surely resurrecting a mummy and murdering people and then reanimating them isn't all you want? You don't strike me as the type of people to be so…..simple."

"When the Great Wizard council was founded, they met to discuss which magical arts were to be banned or outright forgotten. Necromancy is too useful - one of its branches were used by wizards to study vampires, which are beings of necromancy. While many vampires are peaceful beings who are content to just go through life drinking or bathing in blood, there are some who are vicious. Wizards and witches need specific magic to combat and understand them. And then are ghosts and wraiths; how are we supposed to understand the types of wraith we have never encountered before. They're like rats that have adapted to specific brands of poison, they evolve, change, and new types of ghost appear. No one knows why, that's why there's a special branch of researchers. They need knowledge of how to study them. Necromancy gives that power, but while many nations, including my own doesn't have a problem with that, they draw the line around reanimation.

"My sister and I want to change all that. We came here to rediscover those secrets of necromancy, do what witches and wizards did centuries ago; experiment and take chances and learn the limits and push past them, that's how magical knowledge was developed centuries ago. Nowadays there are too many guidelines, there's no thought or invention," the wizard said. It was a nice speech, but while Mildred thought that there was a little bit of truth to the argument, he was clearly drawn to just one branch of magic that could cause too much harm to others; this little experiment had already seen his sister reduced to a virtual comatose state, a woman was dead, her husband was being threatened - his life was literally at stake, and she was about to lose her magic.

All so then these two idiots could answer a few questions. While Mildred was curious about magic, she imagined that perhaps there could be more to necromancy than people believed, she felt these guys were going about it wrong. Couldn't they have fought for a public grant to finance experiments, and do it legally? Why couldn't they join a research team and performed their studies legitimately? Okay, maybe necromancy was one type of magic that was frowned upon, but why couldn't they have studied a different kind of magic? Surely there were other branches of magic that needed developing after so long? Mildred was tempted to ask if the wizard couldn't have just worked with his sister in developing new spells, if they were capable, but she didn't care. She wasn't interested in learning why these two had decided to do something so unfathomably risky, and besides since that image in her mind showing an army of the undead under the control of magic going about killing people and building an even bigger army she was frightened.

Mildred did her best to look like she was considering it when she realised how closely the wizard was looking at her. To her relief, the wizard turned away. Mildred watched as he walked around the room to where his sister was lying, and he picked up a bundle of wooden sticks. She watched a little bemusedly as he unrolled them and she realised it wasn't a bundle of sticks at all, it was a scroll.

The wizard began to chant in what Mildred guessed was ancient Chinese, and she felt the magic in the room growing as the ritual started. Mildred had no idea what the wizard was going to do to her, but she wasn't going to find out, instead she closed her eyes and used the knowledge the Water Dragon had passed onto her at Loch Ness. She had been practicing spells for a while in private, now knowing that a spell was what a witch or wizard made it, not something you could find in a book.

When Mildred had first discovered magic and how she could do it - with practice, more or less - she had tried looking up spells in the library, but the spell books were…..incomplete. It wasn't until later, much later, that she found out that witches and wizards created their own spells when they knew what they wanted. They could say spells in rhyme, or they could just do it silently. Mildred had discovered quickly when she'd copied down one of these spells that it didn't work, now she knew why. It was because she hadn't formed the spell in her mind, so it wasn't hers. But she could think of them on her feet, like with the clumsiness hex she'd cast on Agatha, and like the twisted Cackle twin said to her only seconds before "Witches don't beg for help, witches help themselves."

Now it was time for her to help herself. Mildred looked at the scroll, and she willed it to catch fire. She felt the struggle her magic had against the Ancient Chinese magic, but she pressed on, forcing the ritual magic back until it engulfed the scroll in a ball of flames. The wizard screamed in shock and rage at the sudden attack, but his screaming changed quickly to horror when the fireball started to shake and expand, sending out flashes and bolts of fire that reminded Mildred of the lightning bolts she'd seen over the years.

The wizard glared at her even as she stood up. "You little fool. What've you done?" he shouted.

"I don't know, but I think I've stopped your dreams of becoming necromancers," Mildred said as she stood up but before she could do anything, she screamed in shock when the mummy suddenly moved. The massive thing lurched around the room crazily, lashing around and smashing the decor of the cottage. Mildred had to cover her eyes when the mummy smashed the tv screen, sending sharp pieces of glass and plastic around the room. She and the wizard had to dodge the creatures berserk lunges and how it smashed its way around, a light purple aura starting to glow around the mummy.

"What have you done?!" The wizard screamed again as he barely dodged a slashing blow from the mummy, smashing a flower pot into a mess of china, soil and petals. The mummy seemed to be drawn by the shouting coming from the wizard. It seemed to be following him, focusing more on him than he was focusing on Mildred and the unconscious builder. Mildred took advantage of the mummy's attacks on the wizard so she try to wake the poor man up. But she couldn't wake him up. He was too deeply asleep.

"Come on, wake up!" she pleaded with the man, but he refused to wake up. The only signs of life from him came from the slow rise and fall of his chest, and nothing more. Mildred felt his skin, wishing that she knew something about medicine but there was nothing she could do, so she would have to either leave the man or find a way to get him out so someone could find him and hopefully help him. A cracking sound caught her attention and she was surprised when she caught sight of the mummy's terracotta casing. It was cracking all over. Pieces were falling from its casing, and as its massive armoured arms lashes out, pieces from the sleeves and legs fell and shattered on the floor in small heaps of terracotta. Mildred caught the look on the wizard's face, it was one of pure horror. Clearly the terracotta casing falling was not a good sign.

"Eww!" Mildred grimaced what a large section of terracotta fell from the mummy's face and crashed onto the floor, joining the rest. The mummy's skin was rotted, but the skin was withered and stretched over the skull like leather being tanned and then forgotten. The mummy glanced in her direction before it smashed the wizard to the ground. The wizard cried out in pain and tried casting a spell that blew the mummy's arm to pieces, but the creature didn't feel any pain. It ignored the damage and continued using its one good arm to smash the wizard to the ground with a glancing blow to the chest. Mildred hoped he wasn't dead.

And then something incredible happened. The mummy glowed purple and then it started to disintegrate. It was falling to pieces, but the most surprising thing happened when the mummy turned to look at her. The wizard had told her the mummy's soul wasn't in the body of the creature, yet Mildred couldn't mistake the look on the creature's face.

Hatred. Mildred had thought the mummy couldn't feel emotion, but clearly something had trickled through to the creature. Or maybe the expression of the mummy's face had been fixed when the creature had originally died.

Then it finally collapsed in a pile of decayed flesh and terracotta which shattered on the ground like a flowerpot.

* * *

The next morning Mildred blinked in shock when she saw the grave looking Great Wizard on the doorstep of the cottage. "Your greatness," she greeted, "what are you doing here?"

It had been a rough enough night for her. After the mummy had collapsed, the Chinese wizard had managed to push his injuries aside and grabbed his sister before using a transportation spell. After that a group of wizards had appeared, and Mildred had found herself thoroughly questioned by them. They had wanted to know what had happened at the cottage, and she had told them all she had found out and observed. Fortunately, none of them were keen on prosecuting her. They had managed to heal the builder and had constructed a cover story to explain his absence from the village but they'd had to reveal to him what had happened to his wife. Mildred felt sorry for him, but she didn't know what she could do for him without revealing she was a witch.

Seeing the Great Wizard at the door of the cottage she was renting made Mildred realise how foolish she had been giving the investigators the address. Mildred looked around to make sure her mother wasn't nearby. Her mum had been besides herself with worry and terror when she'd found out she wasn't in the cottage, but Mildred's reappearance the story of what had happened had terrified her even more so Mildred had decided to keep any mention of magic to a bare minimum because she was uncertain how long it would be before her mother snapped. Seeing the Great Wizard here would probably not help.

"I am here to see you, Mildred Hubble," the Wizard said grimly, "may I step inside, I don't want to attract attention?"

Mildred hesitated before she let him pass her by. As he swept by in his blue robes, Mildred let him sit in the living room and asked if he wanted anything to drink, but the Wizard said no. Mildred wasn't sure whether to be happy by that or more concerned. The Wizard noticed her fear and smiled benevolently. "There is no need to worry, my dear. I am only here to visit."

Mildred smiled back before she adopted a more business like posture. "Why are you here?"

"As you know we detected a burst of magic that countered necromantic magic," the Great Wizard replied, "as soon as we discovered that you were involved, I decided to speak to you myself-"

"Before you start, your Greatness, when I arrived in this village with my mother, we didn't know insane Chinese siblings were planning to resurrect a mummy, and we didn't know-"

"Mildred!" The Great Wizard interrupted sternly, seeing no crime in interrupting the girl since she had interrupted him. "Calm down. I am not here to scold you, much. I am here to tell you're not in trouble. In fact you've done a great service; the Chinese have been watching those two for years, concerned they would take their ambitions too far. And they did - they came to this country illegally, smuggling a mummy and then resurrecting it. I intend to draft amendments to the laws governing necromancy and I'm hoping other countries will follow my example when they hear of this incident. Many witches and wizards have campaigned to have necromancy banned for years beyond the basic research lines, now you and those two morons have given those campaigners more exploding potion for their efforts."

Mildred blinked at him wide eyed. She hadn't expected something like this to have far reaching consequences, well she had but not like this.

"The wizard who captured me said that he and his sister grew up in care, that their family fortune was seized, that they were sure they were watched," she broached carefully. She was curious about the reasons for the siblings risky and dangerous little experiment and future plans.

The Great Wizard took a deep breath, and for a second she was sure he wasn't going to reply. "Promise me you won't say a word of what I'm about to say to you is repeated, promise me Mildred."

Mildred nodded quickly. "Of course," she said truthfully.

"I mean it, if word of this gets out then it could cause severe repercussions," the wizard said seriously.

"I promise, sir," Mildred replied.

The Great Wizard looked at her deeply for a moment as if peering into her soul to guarantee she was telling the truth. Finally, he broke eye-contact and looked down at his hands. "The wizard's name is Dao, it means knife or sword, his sister's name is Dai, which means dark. Those names well chosen by their parents, although whether you can call their parents that is debatable."

"Why's that?"

"Have you ever heard of test tube babies?"

Mildred's eyes widened.

"I see you have," the wizard commented.

Mildred shook her head. "They were grown in a lab? But why? I mean, I get it, magic can do things normal science can't yet, but why is it those two are seen as a big deal?"

The Great Wizard sighed. "They wanted to have children who weren't the womb, so they could pick and choose and even program in various traits. This kind of thing is not unknown, so they weren't unique. In the past witches and wizards had to ensure the survival of the Craft. In our world children are vital to the survival of magic, and parents and unmarried people have the option of having children grown in a process similar to IVF. But the twins parents programmed their children's characteristics whereas ordinary parents to be would simply add their DNA to the mix and let nature take its natural course. But those twins….They didn't have a choice, the lure of necromancy and to be powerful is in their nature. They were engineered to be ambitious for power. Don't ask me why Mildred, the Chinese conclave tried asking the two why they bothered, but they committed suicide in prison."

Mildred gaped. "I'd have thought in magical prisons that would be impossible."

"I don't know the full story Mildred, so I don't even know how they died. It's doubtful it was a spell, their magics were bound to prevent them from, well escaping in the first place. I think it was a potion of some sort. Their trial was very quick, they died very quickly."

For a moment Mildred wondered what had killed the twin's parents, but then she decided it didn't matter much. "But what you do think they wanted?" she asked. "What do you think it was all for?"

The Great Wizard looked thoughtful as he considered the question. "I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think that Dao and Dai's parents wanted to create weapons out of their own children."

"That's horrible," Mildred whispered in disgust.

"I know. Even in our community there are people who want to cause harm for their own ends."

Mildred wanted to change tack before she became sick. The idea of child killers was horrifying but she knew it happened in the world. "What's going to happen to them?"

"The Chinese will have them back, I don't know what's going to happen to them - every conclave have their own rules. I could ask the Chinese to have them locked up, but its up to them. Besides the Chinese have very strict penalties concerning necromancy. The twins know that, that's why they came to Europe."

Mildred nodded, but the subject of punishments made her look at him nervously. "What's going to happen to me?"

"After this, I'm going to give you a warning but not an unfair one. You've already helped capture a wizard hunter who was going to take a valuable and rare Water Dragon. Now you've stopped a potential crime with necromancy which this country would've been ill-prepared or equipped to manage. But while I'm thankful towards you, Mildred, I want you to be more careful."

Mildred nodded and bowed her head. "I know," she whispered. "I wasn't planning on getting into trouble this summer, but it seems to find me."

The Great Wizard chuckled as he remembered the times he had been to Cackles over this past year. Granted he had spent the majority of his second visit as a balloon and shoved into a room by Agatha Cackle, but he had gathered enough to know how much trouble this girl could get into.

"Just be careful Mildred," the Great Wizard whispered as he prepared to leave. "Enjoy the rest of your summer."

* * *

Authors note - I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter. Also, I've added a new story, The Pentangles Scholarship. Please enjoy.


	10. Chapter 10 An Idea in Wales

I'm sorry its taken me forever to get back to you with this chapter, but I wanted to see the new series. It's just such a pity that we've only got a few episodes to go before it finishes.

An Idea in Wales.

After that debacle with the mummy and the two Chinese siblings hell-bent on turning magic upside down Mildred was bouncing up and down in her seat, excited as the bus took her and mother all the way to the caravan park to Wales. After encountering the mummy, Mildred and her mother had decided to ditch the car at home and then go back out on a holiday around the UK.

But Mildred was still torn about what to do about the summer project for Miss Hardbroom, she had been inspired a few times over the last few weeks and thanks to the knowledge gleaned from the Water dragon in Loch Ness there were a dozen ideas swirling around in her mind, but actually deciding to work with one was proving difficult. Her brain was racing as she thought about the potential ideas.

Miss Hardbroom had explained the holiday project was supposed to test a witch's creativity and skill at magic; when she had first heard that, Mildred had almost had a panic attack. She had become better at magic over the course of the term when some disaster wasn't happening, but until that dragon had breathed that knowledge into her, she had had problems with the spells. But the ironic thing was Mildred had thought the knowledge would give her inspiration.

It had, but now she had another problem - coming up with a suitable idea of what to do with that knowledge.

Instead, all it had done was make her wonder what she could do without HB penalising her.

"You okay, Millie love?" Mildred smiled at the soft voice of her mother and turned to face her. "Yeah, I was just thinking about the summer project," she told her.

Julie's expression became sympathetic. During Mildred so-called adventures, she had been trying hard to find something, some idea that she could use for the project. When Mildred had told her that story about the dragon breathing knowledge into her, Julie had been pretty ambivalent about her daughter getting a good idea at the drop of a hat, and she had been right to feel that way. Mildred had been racking her brains for a while trying to think of a good project, but because of everything that had happened since she'd had trouble finding the time to properly sit down and think about it.

"You're going to have to buckle down and get right on it, Millie," Julie said softly. "I mean, I only met her a couple of times, but I got the impression Miss Hardbroom does not really like it when someone doesn't do their work."

"You got that right," Mildred said.

A day after the Hubble's arrived at the caravan park, they left for Sully to head over to the Capital Adventure Wales park. It was a relatively new company, but it had a broad range of fun activities for everyone who went there. Some of the activities were terrifying, especially the Gorge scrambling activity, where Mildred and Julie joined a dozen others in ending up in a riverbed while the water washed over them, and despite their clothes, everyone was soaked. But the scariest part was climbing a cascading waterfall, but the most interesting part was seeing the curtain of water when they crawled behind it. Mildred and Julie had both taken photos chronicling the day out (one of Julie's favourites was her playfully pushing Mildred right underneath a waterfall so she was standing in a curtain of water - Mildred had been soaked to the skin, screeching in surprise as the cold water washed over her body, though Julie had made sure her daughter got very warm afterwards to prevent the possibility of a cold).

The scariest parts were when both Hubble's threw themselves into fast running mountain rivers. Mildred herself was nervous, especially since the water was so cold and fast moving, she was worried something could happen, but she enjoyed every minute of it. The next activity Mildred and Julie had fun with was raft building; Mildred was good at arts and crafts, and she was okay working in a team, so learning how to build a raft with her mother and half a dozen other people was a fun experience. It was interesting to build a raft with just a few poles, plastic barrels and rope before they got onto the raft and raced with another team.

Mildred and Julie were thankful for their wetsuits and buoyancy aids because the part of the raft they were sitting on fell apart, though they had managed to stay on. Well, at least until Julie had fallen into the water accidentally (she thought Mildred had deliberately pushed her in as payback for that waterfall fiasco - Mildred had gotten a photo of Julie's face, and it was still something that made her laugh so hard it hurt), but they also got into another activity that threatened to soak them both to death.

Canoeing.

But it wasn't just in the water the Hubble's had fun in. They also went caving, abseiling down the caves and also roller skiing (Mildred privately thought that it was a mad activity, but it was better than speeding down a hill or mountain covered with snow and ice - something she didn't really fancy, even with a broomstick).

Mildred had never really played with a bow and arrow as a little girl, but she had fun at the archery course. Granted, she had more misaims than most, but she still had fun.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Mildred and Julie visited Cardiff city itself, and even visited the parts of the city where the Doctor Who series was shot, but they also visited Cardiff Castle before they visited the Millennium centre to watch a theatre.

As they toured the city for the next few days, visiting Cardiff bay, among other places Mildred and Julie stopped off at a pet shop to have a look to see if there was anything in there they could take back for Tabby - any treats or toys the cat could play with. Mildred had always been disappointed with the pet shops because they didn't have an enormous diversity of pets, they didn't sell kittens or adult cats, never mind puppies and dogs.

Like many other pet shops, there were tanks of fish - some of them the usual goldfish with fins that seemed more like the sails of a boat, and more brightly coloured tropical varieties.

When she saw the hamsters and the rabbits, Mildred smiled at them. She momentarily wished that Enid were here; while she liked her friend a lot and thought she was very fun loving and creative, her habit of using her cat as a menagerie a little irritating. But at that moment she would have liked nothing better than for her friend to be here, and she smirked at the thought of what would happen if she had been around.

Enid would have found the pet shop boring. She would have probably transformed the parakeets into vampire bats to scare people when they saw their fangs, and God alone knew what she would have done with the rabbits and the hamsters.

But this pet shop had a parrot. Mildred had spotted the bird the moment she walked into the shop, and then again when she went up to the counter with a few toys for Tabby.

"Ack, pieces of eight!" The bird squawked, showing her its multicoloured wing.

Mildred chuckled at the colourful exotic bird. "Pieces of Eight? Isn't that from Treasure Island?" she asked the woman behind the counter.

She had read the book ages ago when she had been reading books to draw and sketch little scenes as she pictured them. Back in her bedroom was a portfolio of scenes from different books, among them was Treasure Island.

"Yes it is, love," the pet shop owner said, her lilting Welsh accent showing how disgruntled she was just hearing the parrot speak. "I read it out to him, but he can't say anything else. Stupid bird."

The Welsh woman rolled her eyes. "I kinda wish every animal could speak, only more like us and have a better vocabulary. It would make my job easier if they did."

Mildred smirked at the woman. "Yeah, I can picture the scene. I sometimes wish my cat and I could have long talks."

The woman smiled at Mildred as she paid for her purchases, but as she and her mum headed back to the caravan park she realised something.

"That's it," she whispered. "That can be my project."

Julie overheard her and glanced at her quizzically. "Millie?"

Mildred smiled at her mother. "I've got an idea for the holiday homework. I need to think it through for the next few minutes, but I think I've got an idea."

Ever since she had gotten the knowledge of from the dragon in Loch Ness, Mildred had found her understanding and general comprehension of potions had improved, just like it had grown during her first year at Cackles. While she hadn't really had much of an opportunity to brew any potions since the dragon had placed the knowledge into her head, she had gained a better understanding of the science on top of everything she had learnt from Maud's patient tuition.

It took a few minutes for Mildred to come up with a good enough recipe to brew the potion - the ingredients themselves were easy enough to get hold of, and it was simple enough magic.

When she and her mother got back to the caravan, Mildred told her mother of her idea when Julie was hard at work cooking. "The potion itself should be easy enough to make," she was saying.

"It sounds like a good idea, and exciting. But are you just going to brew a potion and show it off to class? How about you give it to an animal and see how it goes?" Julie asked as she stood over the saucepan, looking at the bubbling mix of tomato sauce, beef and onions. They were having bolognese and another pan was bubbling with the pasta boiling within in.

Mildred looked away for a second. "I've been thinking about that," she said, "the only problem is what if the potion goes wrong? What if something happens to whatever animal I use? At school, Miss Hardbroom always mitigated our mistakes, but on my own, I don't even know what kind of mistakes I can make, and I don't know if I can clean them up."

"Can't you just use a spell? You know, the type you see in movies, with wands?"

Mildred smiled, but she knew what her mother meant. "I thought of that, I'm just not sure if it would stick."

Julie tried to think of something she could say to improve her daughter's confidence. But she couldn't, she wasn't a witch. Things between her and Mildred had improved over the last few days, now she wasn't rushing off to help dragons or fighting mummies, or whatever. But she didn't know what to do to help her with her summer project.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

After several blissful days in Cardiff (and another album's worth), Mildred and Julie headed back home to their flat after they had visited Caerphilly castle. She had been interested in the contrasts between Cackles and the old castle, without magic to hold back the ravages of time it was no wonder the castle was feeling its age, but it was still beautiful, and she had taken a dozen photographs to later draw when she returned home.

But she was still having trouble with the potion. Thanks to the knowledge the dragon had breathed into her and the bits and pieces she'd taken from her lessons at Cackles, Mildred had no problem experimenting with the potion in her flat. Her mother wasn't really happy with the idea of her mixing a potion in her kitchen since she knew what could happen.

Julie loved her daughter, but she didn't want a potion exploding in her face. Not only would it probably demolish their home and a few others, but it would almost certainly injure Mildred.

But Mildred wasn't hurt by her mother's seeming lack of faith, in fact, she understood it. She spent the rest of the summer experimenting with the potion ingredients, using the knowledge to carefully mix it. The only problem was the only animal in the flat she was able to work with was Tabby.

What if she accidentally killed him because the potion was toxic, either because of the ingredients mixed together or because it didn't go well with cats?

In the end, she decided to risk it.


	11. Chapter 11 End of the first day of term

My thanks to the people who've loved my story so far.

My thanks to Reginleif420 for giving me the idea of how to end this story.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

End of the first day of term.

Hecate Hardbroom sighed as she and her longtime friend Ada entered the Headmistress office for a nightcap. The term had started, and once more chaos had come to the school in the form of Mildred Hubble. When Ada handed Hecate the glass filled with 80-year-old brandy, she was tempted to down the whole lot and snatch the rest out of the older witch's hand. Hecate had never considered herself to be an alcoholic, but then again she had never met Mildred Hubble before then.

Inwardly Hecate knew she was being unfair to the girl. In fact, despite all outward appearances, Hecate both liked and admired Mildred because while the girl lurched from one disaster to another and seemed to enjoy driving her and the other teachers into insanity, she didn't give up at the first hurdle; something always happened to make the girl bounce back. The girl was driven to succeed as a witch, but it was sometimes a burden for her to grasp some of the basics of magic. Hecate wondered if she should break the Witches' code and give Mildred some hints and tips about how to perform her spells correctly - it would make life three times easier if she did, and besides it wasn't one of those serious rules in the code that she had no intention of breaking.

"Well Hecate, a new term," she heard Ada say; the older witch's voice was optimistic as it always was whenever a term started, but there was something in her voice that spoke of exhaustion. Hecate couldn't say she was surprised.

"Indeed, Ada," Hecate whispered in her customary way - she was happy everyone knew she spoke in whispers and kept her voice level because it made sure no one could see her fatigue. "Another term with Mildred Hubble," she said, saying Mildred's name with the usual amount of irritation.

Ada sighed. "We can't blame the girl, Hecate. The East Wing could have collapsed regardless. I can picture it now," a haunted expression crossed Ada's face, something that made Hecate want to tremble but it was only her iron self-control which stopped her, "one of the new first years going into one of the rooms, and doing something to set off the collapse. We should be thankful to Mildred for what happened, though at first, I wanted to do something to her that she would never have forgotten. At least no-one was crushed to death. But when she helped uncover the founding stone…"

The older witch shook her head. "Do you know that my mother described the founding stone to myself and to Agatha when we were children?" Ada said, her eyes flickering into the direction where the photograph showing her twin and Miss Gullet suspended in the air was mounted on the wall.

"The story was passed down through the family to where I am now, Hecate. Mother showed us descriptions of the stone, but words couldn't describe how beautiful it is. I am the first in my entire family since my ancestor, the first Miss Cackle, set that stone into the foundations of the castle to power the school and make it a truly magical school."

Hecate smiled at her friend, trying hard not to laugh at how excited Ada was feeling about being the first in her family in generations to actually hold the stone in her hands. When she herself had seen the stone in Ada's hands while the headmistress had come back into the castle after inspecting the ruins of the east wing with Miss Drill and Mr Rowan-Webb, with the pig-tailed, messy form of Mildred Hubble with her, she had pushed aside the matter of Mildred's accusations towards Ethel Hallow aside, lost in the beauty of the stone.

Founding stones were not used anymore for magical buildings. There were other means and methods to christen a witch or wizard school nowadays since the knowledge to make stones like the one Ada had found was now lost to history. Mr Rowan-Webb had been telling the truth when he had said no living person had ever seen a stone. The girls from the older families that recognised it knew that despite its size, the stone was incredibly powerful.

When Hecate herself, a scholar at heart, had seen the stone, she had been able to sense for herself the raw power stored inside the stone's red body.

But then Einstein, Mildred's talking tortoise had spoiled it all by saying the stone didn't look that impressive while he was being held by Maud Spellbody. The revelation that not only had Mildred told the truth about her summer project but that Ethel had stolen it had been infuriating, so it was satisfying to see Ethel don a pair of yellow rubber gloves and dig through the bin to find Mildred's work.

What surprised Hecate the most was how Mildred was able to come up with such a creative and imaginative project - the girl may have been an artist, but she was still not fully trained in the magical arts to make a potion that complex.

Pushing those thoughts to one side, Hecate focused on the conversation. "The founding stone's discovery is important, Ada," she said, "but what are we going to do with it? The East Wing is collapsed, and it will have to go back there in order to power the school. But we can't take it back unless the dark magic still in the stonework is lingering and can affect it."

"I know. I think we shall put it on display in the Great Hall - I know," Ada held up a hand to forestall any protest, "I know that is asking for disaster, but the girls already know its out, and they deserve a chance to see it in all its glory. We can have teachers take turns to guard the stone while we make sure the girls understand if they touch it or disturb it, they will be immediately expelled."

Hecate liked that punishment idea, but she didn't know if it was wise to place the stone on display for the girls to see. Hopefully, the girls would see that it was dangerous to tamper with the stone in any way, and leave it alone. The two witches continued to talk when the Great Wizard materialised in the office.

The instant the witches realised he was there, they both stood up and performed the ritualistic greeting. The Wizard returned it and sat down next to Miss Hardbroom rather than use his authority to take the chair from Ada.

"Your Greatness, this is an unexpected pleasure," Miss Cackle began while both she and Hecate silently magicked their breath so there wasn't a trace of alcohol on their breath, though there was little they could do about the glasses on the desk, "we weren't expecting you."

The wizard waved his hand. "It's merely a flying visit, Ada," he replied. "I just wanted to let you know about some of the activities of one of your students."

Ada looked back at the wizard in bemusement. "I beg your pardon, Your Greatness."

The wizard sighed. "Mildred Hubble. Do you know what she's done during the summer holidays?"

Hecate closed her eyes, wishing she could snatch the bottle away from Ada and didn't care if the wizard witnessed it or not. "What has she done now?" she asked, feeling her head begin to throb. Why couldn't that girl give her peace?!

"Several very good things," the wizard's reply surprised her, and he began to tell them both about what Mildred had been doing during her summer holidays. He told her about how she had saved the Water Dragon in Loch Ness when the creature's guardian vanished, and then told her about the mummy that had been resurrected by the Chinese twins who'd wanted to use it as part of their quest to gain incredible power.

By the time he was finished, Hecate was in three minds - part of her wanted to call the Wizard a liar, but she knew that would not be advisable since she could tell he was telling them the truth about what the girl had done. The second part wanted to strangle Mildred for further driving her up the broomstick!

And the final part…. she wanted to grab that bottle and drown herself in brandy, anything to get the vision of that pint-sized little troublemaker battling that mummy and saving the water dragon out of her mind.

Ada herself was disbelieving - she had faith in Mildred, she really did, but she was surprised that even during the summer she was getting into this much trouble. "What would you like us to do?" she asked the wizard.

To the surprise of both Ada and Hecate, the wizard sighed. "I don't know," he said wearily, "that girl is going to be the death of all of us. I don't suppose you've got any more brandy, by any chance?"

Very quickly the three magicians drowned their sorrows in the alcohol. Hecate wondered, even with her aching head, what that pint-sized little monster would do next. She also sometimes wondered if Mildred was sent by fate herself to reduce her to a shadow of herself. No, she was exaggerating there - Mildred was annoying, no doubts there, but she had good qualities. She only hoped to still have her sanity intact so she could see them for herself.

The end.


End file.
